


In My Humble Public Opinion

by planarities



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Multi, aka Blake & Griffin & Reyes & Miller, and pretty much everyone is famous, media darlings au ft. the Holy Squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/planarities/pseuds/planarities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starring:<br/>Clarke and Bellamy as PR disasters who don't know when to let things go;<br/>Monty, Harper, and Murphy as their slightly insane co-stars;<br/>Marcus and Abby as The Hollywood Royalty™;<br/>and Indra as a publicist in desperate need of a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Golden Trio

##  **THE NEW GENERATION: GOLDEN TRIO**

 When my boss first approached me with this task three weeks ago, I honestly thought he was joking. You'd think so too, if you were asked to do an honest, heart-spilling interview with the three most-sought-after new faces in entertainment industry – Bellamy Blake, Raven Reyes and Nathan Miller. If only those three don't cover up their tracks better than the freaking President.

They'd be great secret agents, though for all we know, they already are.

All joking aside, The Golden Trio, as they were named by the press, has had us all talking - they are leading the new kind of today's celebrity culture, comprised of young, successful and famous new artists and Internet personalities. They don't have time for nasty scandals, 'leaked' naked selfies and jet-set outings that regularly end with a night in jail. They are talented, hardworking and determined – and they are here to win.

But by far the most important quality of this new generation of celebs is their heavy online presence and personal daily interaction with their fans via Twitter, Instagram and other sites.

In The Golden Trio's case, the magnitude of their digital fanbase says it all: together they have almost 30 million followers across social media (Raven's instagram account is bringing in half of that number) and an unimaginable influence on the young generations worldwide.

But what makes them so interesting is not the fact that they are, in no particular order, an international supermodel, an oscar-winning young actor, and a critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter.

It's the fact that they are best friends.

And here's how I met them.

-

Even after weeks of shameless begging, bribing people with cups of cofee and calling in favors, I am still somewhat surprised to be seated across from the Big Three in a small downtown cafe. Not gonna lie, I'm also the tiniest bit starstruck.

I may have sold my soul to the devil for this one, but trust me, guys, it was worth it.

When I finally meet our trio, it's obvious that if it were up to them, they would be doing anything but exposing their lives to little old me on this sunny Saturday morning. It's not a coincidence that each has done only a scatter of interviews since they gained worldwide fame.

I guess it's now time for me to thank God that they are all managed by a same company and that its owner is my old high school friend.

It's also time for a proper introduction of mine and everyone's favorite newcomers to the entertainment scene.

 

 ** **Raven Reyes.** ** Everybody's latest favourite supermodel. The mastermind behind this year's most copied trends. The epitome of casual chic. Has crazed but extremely loyal legions of followers on Instagram, and her own minimalistic clothing line for an online megastore in making.

**Bellamy Blake**. Young actor who came out of nowhere last year and won pretty much every single award there is. Won an Oscar for his first real role. Hollywood and Tumblr's newest obsession. His talent brings people to tears, and his drop-dead gorgeous looks are the reason why they don't stop crying.

**Nathan Miller.** Singer-songwriter. He sings an electrifying mixture of indie rock, soul and pop, and in turn the critics sing his praise. Currently on top of every existing music chart in the Universe. Everyone is in love with him, including you, your neighbour and your neighbour's cat. He tries to stay away from the spotlight, but that only makes everyone more curious.

 

Even though I am 10 minutes early for the interview, they are already seated at a table towards the back. The cafe they chose for the interview, _Grounders_ , is not a place one would think celebrities like them hang out at, but, somehow, it suits them perfectly. It's a relatively small space, quite intimate and cozy, with dimmed hanging lights, exposed brick walls, small green plants and grey pillows. It's like I walked into a hipster heaven, and our trio is definitely running the show.

 I take advantage of the fact that they haven't seen me enter yet and observe them more closely. I note their casual yet immaculate clothes, and am immediatelly doubting my self-proclaimed office chic attire.

Fascinated, I watch them lounging on a purple sofa, their interaction easy and natural. Miller brings a cup of tea to his lips and chuckles as Blake remarks something, while Reyes pulls out her phone, starts swiping and typing impatiently. Even just by looking at them I'd say they are important. Yet it doesn't seem forced like it does with so many other celebrities I've met, and I realize it's because they aren't trying too hard to look the part - in fact, they're not trying at all.

At the first glance, they seem relaxed, but their movements are giving away their tension. Blake's hands won't stay still, and Reyes' high heel is tapping against the leg of the table in a nervous motion. It's Miller, as always, who I can't get a read on. He's completely still, at least until he turns his head ever so slightly and sees me from the corner of his eye.

Busted.

Cheeks flushed, I make my way around the cafe's oblivious customers and reach the Trio's table.

Up close, I'm momentarily distracted by Reyes' perfect make-up (seriously, I wasn't aware eyeliner can have such a sharp edge), Blake's perfectly messy hair, and Miller's perfectly rolled up sleeves.

Okay, so now I know that perfection is real, and it hangs out at _Grounders_.

They stand up to greet me, and I take notice of their minimalistic yet trendy outfits.  Of course they look both fantastic and like they've thrown on the first thing they found at the same time.

Blake offers me his hand first, and I get the feeling he's been assigned the role of today's diplomat, someone to keep them all in check. He's clad in a black t-shirt and denim jacket, he looks effortlessly gorgeous and his skin is a bundle of freckles; without a warning he offers me an almost blinding smile and, suddenly, I am a self-conscious teenage girl again. With a massive crush on the dreamy young actor.

Next, I turn to Reyes, and try very hard not to combust from jealousy because, seriously, no one's hair is supposed to be that shiny. She's sporting 5-inch high-heeled sandals like it's nothing, paired with dark jeans and a nude blazer. She gives me a surprisingly warm smile and I've already forgotten my girlish crush on Bellamy because _I am in love_.

My heart now a confused bundle of feelings, I turn to Miller, who's wearing his trademark beanie and an oversized black shirt with a striped t-shirt underneath. He shakes my hand and gives me a guarded smile. His infamous smirk is seriously toned down in my presence (which I know better than to take offence at, seeing as I'm representing the media and therefore The Official Enemy at this table), but it's still enough to make me swoon.

I settle across from them and take in the magnificent sight that is three successful, rich and famous 25-year-olds.

They are the coolest cool kids I've ever seen.

We exchange pleasantries and I place my order before it's time for the actual interview to begin. Miller crosses his arms over his chest, Reyes lifts her chin ever so slightly, and Blake drums his fingers on his thigh. They are steeling themselves for the prying questions and for a moment I actually feel sorry that I have to put them through the whole charade.

But then I remember that they definitely won't make this easy on me, and I'm ready again to get myself some long-awaited answers.

Ever since their first public outing at Grammy awards earlier this year, they've held everyone's attention. Miler was nominated for Best New Artist (naturally, he won the award later in the evening)  and he brought Blake and Reyes as his plus two. It was like, you know, no big deal, here are my two BFFs, a rising star in international modeling and this year's youngest Oscar-nominee. From the moment they walked onto the red carpet and Miller introduced them as 'my friends', everyone suddenly wanted - no, _needed_ \- to know everything about this star-studded friendship. However, staying irritatingly true to themselves, they showed us nothing but rueful tight-lipped smiles and enviable deflecting techniques.

And now, after months of rumours, millions of new followers on social media, a couple more public outings, and that really cute picture of them laughing backstage at one of Miller's sold-out shows (twitter was collapsing with so many fans 'unable to even'), here I am, sitting across from the three most relevant young faces in the entertainment industry. And as impossible as it may sound, they look even better in person.

There's so much me and everyone else want to know, but I decide to start with the obvious.

_'There have been many rumors about the start of your friendship, including the one that says Raven couldn't choose between you two. How did you really meet?'_

Reyes is the one that answers, trying to keep from laughing, _'Oh, I wish this whole thing was some torrid love affair. It would make a much more interesting story. unfortunately, it's not.'_  She adds with a casual shrug, _'Though I wasn't there when these two met, so maybe I missed the juicy bits.'_

 _'Yeah, she really hasn't,'_ Blake's quick to assure me, giving Reyes the side eye, ' _Nate and I actually met in college, but we didn't become friends until this god-awful party we attended when we both moved to L.A.'_ At this, Miller and Blake exchange a sly smile, and now I really want to know what happened that night.

He continues, _'At that point, Nate had already signed a contract with his record label, and I was preparing for my first real role. We kind of skipped the whole pursuing-our-dreams-together- in-L.A. thing. And then we came across Raven at this other party few months later, which was even worse._ '

Reyes turns to me and explains with a fond smile, _'As you can see, he goes around collecting people at terrible L.A. parties like stray cats._ '

Miller smirks. _'Yeah, you never know who he's gonna bring home next.'_

I know I'll definitely start accepting more invitations to parties and pray to God these three take me in. Which leads me to the next obvious question.

_'I think it's time to clear this one up once and for all. It's been a point of  discussion for so long and your fans are dying to know. Is it true that you guys are living together?'_

Blake is the first to react, smiling to himself like he's been expecting this question from the moment I sat at the table. _'Yeah, we do. At least when we're in New York.'_

Reyes joins in. _'We have a place, but these days we're so busy flying all over the world that we rarely spend more than a night at a time there. And it's a miracle if two of us are in New York at the same time.'_

Now that the burning question has finally been answered, I decide to probe a little and ask what it is like living with two other world-famous celebrities.

 _'Well,_ ' to my surprise, it's Miller that answers, _'sometimes it does get crowded because of these two's massive egos.'_

Blake snorts, and Reyes punches Miller in the shoulder, though it doesn't wipe the smirk away from his face. On the inside, my fangirl heart is bursting at the sight of them interacting so naturally.

 _'No, it's pretty cool,'_ Blake explains, _'sometimes we get drunk and read mean comments on the internet. It's the best.'_

I decide to take it a step further, and ask Reyes what it's like living with two of the country's most eligible bachelors.

 _'They're alright, I guess,'_ she shrugs, and gets an elbow in ribs from mock-offended Blake. She continues, unperturbed, her perfectly polished nails cutting through the air with a wave of her hand. _'We've been friends for a year now, and once you eat bad chinese together and hurl all over the bathroom, it's surprisingly easy to forget that they are world's sexiest men, or whatever._ '

 _'So there's never been anything more than friendship_...?' I dare to ask, and they exchange quick, unreadable glances.

I find myself waiting for their answer on the edge of my seat.

 _'Yeah, no, we've all been on the same page from the start,'_ Blake gives the diplomatic answer with a perfectly straight face, but I also recieve the implicit message that says _we won't tell you anything else, so you may as well change the subject_.

Accepting defeat, I bring up their recent successes.

 _'We've been very lucky from the start,'_ Blake says, ducking his head and messing up his hair in a self-conscious gesture. At this point, I am on the floor, crying, because this gorgeous, successful man is also humble - and the modesty's not fake.

 _'Speak for yourself, Bellamy,'_ Reyes tells him, _'I definitely worked my ass off.'_

Opposite me, Miller rolls his eyes good-naturedly. _'You're leaving the bragging to me again, aren't you?'_

He turns to me, lowering his voice like he's letting me in on a secret. _'He always makes me look like a self-absorbed dick.'_

 _'That's because you are one,'_ Reyes counters, and Blake has to cover his chuckle with a cough.

While he recovers, his two friends glare at each other, but there's no heat to it.

 _'Don't mind them, that's how they show affection to one another,'_ Blake tells me, and now I'm seriously contemplating abandoning my life and begging the three of them to accept me into their clique.

I ask Reyes about the project she announced on twitter two days ago and her intimidatingly perfect face lights up in an instant.

_'I'm working with ASOS on a small collection of clothing, you know, things that I would wear myself. I'm very excited, especially because I'll be designing a special piece, a t-shirt whose sale will earn money for an organisation for female education.'_

Noting Blake and Miller's proud expressions, I congratulate Reyes and ask what is next in store for the boys.

I learn that Miller is working on his highly anticipated second album, and can't help but fish for an exclusive.

_'It's going to be more mature, I hope. I've been so overwhelmed with how everyone's accepted the first one, and for me the whole experience of writing it and then performing it all around the country was something like self-discovery. Now I'm ready to express everything I've learned.'_

_'So it's going to be about frying eggs,'_ Reyes teases, _'because last week he finally managed to do that without setting off the fire alarm.'_ Blake's now sent into another coughing fit.

 _'At least I didn't burn water,'_ Miller throws back, and Blake is forced to intercept.

 _'You both suck at cooking,'_ he tells them, and addresses me before they can continue bickering. _'Come on, next question.'_

Deciding he's set himself up for this one, I ask him about his upcoming movie project. Everybody and their grandma can tell it's going to be huge.

_'We begin filming next week, and to be honest, I still can't believe I got the part.'_

He's talking about _Mt Weather Studio_ 's newest project, a three part story (a trilogy, basically, but ever since _Twilight_ that term has carried a notoriously negative connotation in Hollywood and has been avoided like the Black Plague). It's based on Thomas Jackson's award-winning book series and Blake landed one of the two main roles, a co-leader of rebels in a high-tech post-apocalyptic society set in Space. He's playing alongside Clarke Griffin, everyone's favorite Hollywood Princess who recently dropped out of med school and decided acting has been her dream all along (more on Clarke Griffin's sudden change of heart in our next _Weekend Special_ ).

When I ask him about his new co-star, he gives yet another diplomatic answer ( _'We've only met a couple of times, I'm sure we'll get along fine'_ ), but I don't miss Miller and Reyes' sly glances and Blake's sudden interest in the tablecloth. There's a story there and I want to press harder, but I know my efforts will be in vain.

With these three, you always know exactly as much as they want you to, and not a single word more. Oddly, I can't help but respect them for it.

As our time together draws to a close, I decide to ask one last question. ' _What is the worst thing about your careers?'_

Miller has the answer ready. _'Lack of privacy,'_ he says, and the other two nod in agreement. _'It would be nice to go to Taco Bell without the whole planet knowing what I ordered before I even sat down to eat.'_

Reyes is next. _'Once you start appearing on billboards, there are so many people trying to get on your good side, it's sometimes hard to tell who's real and who's not.'_

At this I'm expecting a snide remark or two, especially from Miller, but they surprise me once again. Their expressions are serious, obviously sharing Reyes' opinion.

I nod at Blake, and he takes a moment before continuing. _'It's great to be traveling and experiencing so many new things, but sometimes it's hard to be on the other side of the world from my family and friends, these two in particular'_. Again, no teasing for showing weakness, just sincere smiles directed at each other. It makes me feel almost like I'm intruding on an intimate moment between family members.

Yes, guys, I had my doubts too, but The Golden Trio is as real as it can be.

On that note, I decide to wrap up the interview. I thank them for their time, feeling unexpectedly sad to part with them.

They stand up to shake my hand, flash their perfect smiles one last time. Before I know it, I'm walking towards the exit and behind me they are already falling into an easy conversation, laughing about a thing or another.

I smile to myself, only just starting to process everything that has happened as I reach for the door handle.

From the moment I stepped into the cafe, there has been something about them that struck me as odd, however, throughout the entire interview I wasn't able to put my finger on it.

When I'm out on the street, digging through my purse in search of car keys, I realize what it was.

They are real, and whether you're watching them reply to each other on Twitter or you're sitting with them at a local cafe, it's so easy to forget that they are three of the country's most influential people.

* * *

**written by Maya Vie for The Rolling Stone**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to spend this summer actually doing something productive, and this fic is the first in what I hope will be many to come.  
> As of yesterday I'm also planarities on tumblr, it's where I'll be posting whatever my mind comes up with.
> 
> Also, I have no idea if this is good/bad/so terrible you wish you haven't read it at all, and I'd appreciate it if you shared your thoughts.


	2. Pre-production pt. I

Bellamy exits _Grounders_ shortly after the dreaded interview, and his publicist is already briefing him over the phone.

Indra is nothing if not thorough, and even though she is a firm believer in tough love, Bellamy will forever be indebted to Marcus Kane for the recomendation.

 _'How did it go?'_ she gets straight to the point, as always.

'Fine. I don't know,' Bellamy rubs his face. 'Nate and Raven were being only 35% of idiots they usually are, so that was good.'

From his right side, Raven elbows him in the ribs. 'They asked him about Clarke,' she says with a smug smile, voice raised, attempting to get Bellamy into trouble with his publicist. The fact that Bellamy is standing _right there_ isn't something she is bothered with.

_'Really? And what did you say?'_

Bellamy hears the edge in Indra's voice and shoves Raven away, but she only laughs and high-fives Nate. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Bellamy ponders why he is friends with them.

He adjusts the phone against his ear. 'Nothing, I said we'll get along just fine.'

There's a long silent moment, after which Indra's deadpan voice makes Bellamy wince. _'So this whole interview was a lie, and god only knows what that girl is writing about you three as we speak.'_

Bellamy doesn't think this is completely true. After all, everything he said was more or less the truth. He, Raven and Nate have always been friends. And although he and Raven may have hooked up the night they met, they _were_ always on the same page. And that whole thing with Clarke Griffin - they have just signed on three insanely-big-budget movies, so even if she's acting like a dick, they _will_ have to get along one way or another.

He tells Indra this, but she only sighs in desperation.

_'Apparently I have to go do some serious damage control. You kids stay out of trouble today, if that's not too much to ask.'_

She hangs up without a good-bye, but Bellamy's so used to it by now that he doesn't even notice. Instead, he turns to Nate.

'Who thought this interview would be a good idea?'

'Let me think,' Nate says, adjusting his beanie before turning back to Bellamy. 'Oh, yeah, it was _you_.'

'And why the hell did you listen to me? You usually never do.'

Raven stops in her tracks, causing Nate and Bellamy to almost crash into her. ' _Finally_ someone's said something intelligent. Bellamy, we'll never listen to you again. As a matter of fact, you guys should only listen to me from now on, since apparently I'm the one with the looks _and_ the brains.'

They get into a car that's waiting for them down the block and return to their apartment.

During the ride, Bellamy's phone buzzes with a new text. 'Jordan's thanking us for doing the interview,' he informs them.

'Yeah?' Raven asks, unimpressed. 'Tell him that's the first and the last time we're doing something because he's incapable of asking his high-school crush on a date.'

They have the rest of the day free and they're spending it together because, after tonight, they won't be in the same place any time soon.

Tomorrow morning Bellamy and Raven are flying out – filming of  _The Ark_ starts soon, and it's also the beginning of fashion week madness – London first, then Milan – for all of which Raven is overbooked.

As for Nate, he's about to be holed up in a recording studio for weeks, working on his second album.

That's why they end up spending the whole afternoon watching _America's Next Top Model_. Raven provides the commentary (meaning she trash-talks everything, from contestants to bad lighting) as they stuff themselves with pizza (meaning Raven and Bellamy watch in disbelief as Nate helps himself to yet another slice, and he shrugs off their gaping, 'What? _My_ job doesn't require perfect abs for the cameras.')

'But it certainly won't help if they have to roll you over the stage,' Bellamy comments, and ducks to avoid a flying pillow sent his way.

'I'll let you know I have a fast metabolism.'

Raven snorts, 'That's what they all say.' She reaches for the remote and turns up the sound. 'Now shut up, Tiffany is about to get yelled at.'

Once they've consumed so much food they can't really move, and are just lying on the sofa, half-comatose, Bellamy suddenly remembers he'll have a lot of events to go to once the movie is finished, for which he'll need a plus one. He tells them to fight it out and let him know who won.

'You want us to fight over who'll be your date for a couple of lame parties?' Nate asks, unimpressed.

Raven lifts her head from the sofa, grinning from ear to ear. 'We all know I'd win that fight. And they may be lame parties, but Clarke Griffin's gonna be there, and there's no way I'm missing that shitshow.'

Bellamy frowns. 'What, you think we won't be able to control ourselves for one night and end up fist-fighting over the entrees?'

Raven gives him a pointed look, and he nods, grimacing, 'Yeah, we probably will.'

She extends her arm and pats him on the leg, before taking another sip of beer. 'But if you two are in the States, doing your lame jobs or whatever, who am I gonna bring to those trashy fashion week parties?'

'You could always take one of those football players,' Nate offers, 'I mean, they are not the brightest bunch, but at least you'll have something pretty to look at.'

'Please,' she snorts, 'they can't hold a conversation for longer than two seconds.'

Bellamy squeezes her hand. 'I wish I could go with you, fashion week parties are definitely my favorite. Somehow they always end with someone's broken nose.'

'I could ask Octavia to fly in. I bet she'd be even more fun than you.'

'You know she has exams soon. And I'm not paying Harvard those insane amounts of money so that she can get drunk in London with you.'

They lounge in comfortable silence for a while, each lost in their thoughts. Nate nurses his drink, musing out loud. 'If we continue to be each others dates to everything, they'll seriously start thinking at least two of us are sleeping together.'

Raven sets her beer on the coffee table, chuckling. 'They already think that, and won't stop no matter what we say or do, so who cares?' She leans back on the sofa, and slowly smiles, like she knows something the other two don't. 'Anyway, Nate, now that Griffin's in the picture, nobody's gonna care about the two of us.'

Nate mock-pouts, while Bellamy actually growls and presses his face into the pillows. 'Oh, enough about Clarke Griffin. You keep reminding me I'm stuck with her now.'

'Well, that's the point, idiot,' Raven says, grinning. 'I'm sure you two will make a very believable couple.'

'You know what,' Bellamy starts, 'once she drives me completely insane and I murder her, I'll call you two and make you help me bury the body.' As an afterthought, he adds, 'And it's not _my_ fault she's a- '

' _A stuck-up brat_ , we know,' Nate assures him.

* * *

The flight has been delayed, there's a missed call from her mother on her phone, Lincoln's not here yet, and Kyle won't stop laughing.

It's safe to say that Clarke is annoyed.

'Brighten up, Clarke. At least you're not dating that douche anymore,' Kyle says, grinning from ear to ear. When is that guy not in a good mood?

'I'll punch you,' she tells him, and checks her phone again.

'Oh come on, Griffin, don't be rude. You won't see your best friend for at least a month.'

'Why wouldn't I? Lincoln's going with me.'

Kyle tilts his head, gives her an unamused look. Clarke grins at him, and then sees Lincoln making his way through the crowd.

Kyle follows her gaze, his eyebrows lifting. 'Wow, he actually came.'

Clarke punches his shoulder, and he moves out of her reach with an offended 'Ouch!'.

'See? This is why I didn't think he'll come,' he tells her, smirking. 'You bully your friends. Or, I mean, your _friend_. Seeing as I'm the only one stuck with you.'

'Well, she does pay me,' Lincoln's voice startles them both, and he smiles.

'Oh yeah, I forgot about that,' Kyle says and shakes his hand.

Clarke pulls Lincoln into a hug, 'Thanks for coming, even though I did pay you.'

They head over to the restaurant area and find themselves a nice table next to floor-to-ceiling windows. They settle into an easy conversation, she sips her coffee and absent-mindedly observes the planes landing outside, as her childhood best friend talks to her college-friend-turned-security-detail. It's nice.

She has known Kyle since forever, having lived in the same upscale neighbourhood and attended the same posh private school. Their parents ran in the same circles, because the Wicks were an internationally famous director duo before they died in a car accident when Kyle was in college. He was never interested in their kind of life, and Clarke was actually afraid she was disappointing him when she decided to join the game.

At least until he swore on their secret tree house back in the woods near Clarke's childhood home that he doesn't care what she does as long as she's still Clarke.

And the tree house is _sacred_.

She met Lincoln in college during her short martial arts phase. He taught self-defense, and she was the clumsiest person in class. They've been friends ever since.

She hired him as her security detail when she decided to get back to Hollywood and her mother insisted she stays protected. Despite his bulky muscles and intimidating height, he's actually the most gentle teddy bear at heart.

But her mother doesn't have to know that.

'So, about the whole Blake situation,' Lincoln's voice brings her out of her thoughts, and she instinctively frowns at the mention of _that_ name. Kyle notices this, of course, and starts laughing.

'She's had that same look everytime I mentioned the guy,' he tells Lincoln.

'I'm just unsure of what I'm supposed to do,' Lincoln continues, 'Hate him on principle? Run interference? Am I allowed to talk to him or I'll be fired for it?' He adds, hesitant, 'He doesn't seem that bad.'

Clarke snorts and almost spills coffee all over herself, as Kyle and Lincoln stare her down, eyebrows raised.

'Yeah, well, you haven't met him in person,' she tells them. Kyle opens his mouth to say something, but a girl stops at their table and interrupts them.

'Sorry, are you Clarke? Clarke Griffin?'

The girl is about sixteen, with dark skin and long curly hair. Her smile is wide, and excitement is visible in her eyes.

Clarke can't help but return a smile. 'Yep, that's me.'

The girl waves with her phone, slightly embarrased. 'Could I get a picture with you?

'Of course.'

Clarke stands up, and Kyle takes a picture of her and the girl.

'You're shooting that movie with Bellamy Blake, right?' she asks Clarke when Kyle gives her the phone back. Clarke nods.

'God, lucky you. He's _so_ hot.'

Clarke nods again, biting her tongue in order to stop herself from saying, 'He's also an ass.' Still, her cheeks get the tiniest bit flushed, because, well, she may be at war with Bellamy Blake, but she's not _blind_.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kyle raising his eyebrows, and knows he's noticed her blush. Fucking best friends, they're such an inconvenience sometimes.

The girl thanks her and continues on her way, typing on her phone and murmuring to herself, _'Katie is not gonna believe this._ '

Clarke returns to her seat and meets Lincoln's gaze. 'That happens to you a lot?'

She shrugs, reaching for a small bowl filled with peanuts. 'Used to happen quite often. And it started up again after, well-'

'After what I like to call The Nudes Fiasco,' Kyle finishes, and lifts his glass in toast. 'My little Clarke, all grown up and involved in a scandal,' he says in a terrifyingly accurate proud Abigail Griffin voice.

She flicks a peanut at him, and he grins. She can't help but grin back, before turning to Lincoln.

'It used to be really weird and uncomfortable, still is sometimes, but I got used to it.'

Once Clarke and Lincoln are finally able to board their flight, the three of them linger by the exit, and Clarke pulls Kyle into a bone-crushing hug.

'I'll miss you, okay,' she says into his shirt, hands clutching his shoulders.

'I'll miss you too. Try not to set Bellamy Blake on fire, unless he deserves it.'

Clarke laughs, and presses her lips against his cheek. 'For you, I'll try.'

She steps back, and the three of them stand in silence for a short awkward moment.

Lincoln then looks at Kyle, completely serious, and says, 'Well, _I_ am not going to kiss you.'

After a shared laugh, Kyle grins at Clarke, 'I like this one. Keep him.'

They say a final good-bye and Kyle waves them off.

Before she knows it, Clarke's strapped in next to Lincoln, off to experience the wildest ride of her life. Even if she doesn't know it just yet.

* * *

So here's the thing about Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin, and their infamous hate at first sight. The animosity between them is a result of many factors, one of which is definitely fate, destiny, karma – whatever you like to call it.

First and foremost, they are two people with fundamentally different backgrounds. Clarke was born into it all – wealth, security, every wish granted – but also constant media attention and an endless string of nannies. Her parents loved her, but they weren't always there.

Bellamy was a kid with an overstressed mother, a hungry younger sister and no father. He pretty much raised himself and his sister, somwhere between making sure the bills were paid in time and studying in order to secure a scholarship.

At 20, Bellamy was in college, mostly successful at juggling his education, work and an adolescent Octavia. He went to a small acting audition only because of the payment, and it turned out he was actually good at the whole acting thing. He certainly didn't mind the escape from reality. A month before graduation a talent scout saw him in a local play, and he was fast-tracked to L.A. Thankfully, Octavia was all for a warmer climate.

He worked on a couple of independent movies, guest starred on a few TV shows. Then, to his and everyone else's surprise, he was chosen to play in a movie alongside fucking Marcus Kane, which meant he suddenly found himself in the big league. Everything before that was child's play.

No one knew who he was, but he actually had a lot of fun filming his first real big-budget movie. Once it was released, _everyone_ knew who he was. And won an Oscar.

Yep, he still doesn't believe it either.

And when he was cast for _The Ark_ , people nodded in agreement and already predicted another Oscar nomination.

At 24, Clarke was somewhere on her way to become a doctor when she broke up with her boyfriend. She had long decided that although she wanted to act like her mother, she didn't want to feel like a circus attraction anymore and deal with paparazzi on each trip to the local supermarket. So she ignored her longing and studied to be a doctor instead. She met this boy, and he was charming and made her laugh. She fell too easy, and assumed it was love. After he sold her nearly naked selfies to Us Weekly, she realized she'll never escape who she was, so she might as well do what she really wants. The next day, she dropped out of med school and returned to L.A.

Although she didn't want to use any connections, her name alone worked to her advantage. After all, it was a unique kind of promo to have Clarke Griffin, a Hollywood legacy and daughter of the Oscar-winning actress and director duo Abigail and late Jake Griffin, starring in your production. Which is how she landed her first movie in a matter of weeks, and it was _The Ark_.

Secondly, though their upbringing differed greatly, they have managed to end up with a number of frighteningly similar characteristics. Just like they're both natural leaders, they have the same impressive ability to hold a grudge for much longer than any sane person should, and they are known for their reluctance to admit it is possible that they were perhaps, maybe, conceivably _wrong_.

Thirdly, sometimes a string of unconnected events leads to strange results. Whether it was bad luck or serendipity, destiny arranged by the Universe or just simple coincidence, several things occured on the morning of Bellamy and Clarke's first meeting and made it a disastrous one.

Octavia called and told Bellamy that his dog, which was staying with her while he was on set, got sick and had to stay at the vet's.

Clarke had to hide behind a bush to avoid previously mentioned ex-boyfriend. She assumed he was either after more pictures he could sell to the tabloids or he would try to apologize. She didn't stick around to find out which it was.

Clarke cut her underarm on said bush and bloodied her sleeve.

Bellamy arrived early and met John Murphy, one of the supporting roles. It's safe to say that didn't end well.

Each of these misfortunes alone would be enough to cause trouble, together, however, they proved to be a deadly combination.

Body count includes a shattered mug, two frightened interns, and a grudge that would be held for far too long.

It went along the lines of this: Clarke was late, Bellamy unfairly assumed some things, Clarke said some things she wasn't proud of, Bellamy called her _Princess_ in a condescending tone, Clarke broke a mug.

They did a test reading for the director to see if they work well together, which was what they came there to do anyway. Clarke was puffing smoke from her ears and he wouldn't stop smirking. At least nobody could say their interaction lacked passion.

When they were finally done, the director and the whole production team looked like cats that ate the canary, which was a promising sign. Although Clarke wasn't even sure she wanted to get the part if it meant she'll have to work with him. Which – no, she wouldn't let him ruin her chance to do what she had always wanted to.

So, he was a dick? Too bad, because Clarke could be an even bigger one.

And because she was Clarke, she saw it as a challenge - something from which she never backed away.

One could argue the odds weren't in their favor from the start. After that, they needed no help from the stars – they both proved to have an endless source of things to argue about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have no idea what I'm doing, and I hope it's not too obvious.  
> I have many ideas for this story, but I'm not yet sure how I'll develop them. I had this chapter already written and I wanted to just get it out there before I tackle the rest of the fic. In other words, you'll probably have to wait a bit until the next one. 
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and kind words, I hope I'm not letting anyone down :)


	3. Filming pt. I

As the cast and the crew mill around the front of the hotel with their luggage, waiting to check in, it becomes clear to everyone that the first days on set will be challenging. They've arrived at the first filming location, where they'll spend a couple of weeks on rehearsals and preparation before the actual filming begins. The animosity between the movie's co-stars is already an open secret and, between unloading equipment and acquainting each other, everyone is curious to see how the two of them will get along.

Clarke is exhausted because the actual devil disguised as a 10-year-old was kicking the back of her seat for the entirety of her flight, and now she has to stand in the sun while their accomodation is being sorted out. She wipes the sweat trickling down her forehead and repeats to herself that acting is her dream job, no matter the fact that she'll look like a burned Barbie if she stays out in the sun much longer.

Lincoln nudges her from the side and offers her an ice-cold water bottle. She knew hiring him was a good idea.

She gulps down the water and the stress from today melts away almost completely. She smiles to herself, because acting _is_ her dream job and she wouldn't want to be anywhere but here.

And then there _he_ is.

And she's not smiling anymore.

He's making his way through the crowd, greeting a couple of people with a huge grin on his face, a sports bag hanging from his shoulder.

A simple white T-shirt and black jeans shouldn't look that good on anybody.

She's contemplating leaving and hiding somewhere before he notices her, because she's not really in the mood for a showdown right now, but then he sees her and narrows his eyes slightly, not paying any attention to a short bald man he was talking to just a moment ago.

The hair on the back of her neck bristles and she's ready to fight it out, just like that.

He sighs in resignation and saunters over to her.

Around them everyone is pretending to be busy, chatting with each other and feigning sudden interest in filming equipment, but she knows they are closely watching the two co-stars out of the corners of their eyes.

He stops entirely too close to her and eyes Lincoln warily.

'A bodyguard? Really?' his voice drips with disdain.

Now, Clarke could be the bigger person and offer a number of logical explanations. Like those creeps that feel entitled to comment on her leaked photos, her mother wanting her to be safer now that she's back in the public eye, or the fact that Lincoln's here for a first few weeks until they start filming at a more out-of-town location.

But she doesn't want to explain herself to _him_.

So instead she tells him cheerfully, 'He's very handy. Look, I can position him like this,' she tugs on Lincoln and moves him in front of herself so that he's blocking her view. 'Now I don't have to look at your ugly face.'

Lincoln is holding in laughter, and Bellamy is looking at them in disbelief. After a short silent moment, Lincoln offers Bellamy his hand.

'I'm Lincoln,' he says, wincing slightly when Clarke pokes him in the back. He looks over his shoulder, 'What? _I_ don't have a problem with him.'

Bellamy shakes his hand, expression wary, like it's another one of Clarke's ploys that will end badly for him. 'Bellamy.'

'Cool, now that we're all friends, I think I'll go find my room.'

He heads towards the hotel entrance, leaving Clarke and Bellamy to glare at each other.

Her chin is raised in defiance, and she absolutely refuses to acknowledge the way his T-shirt stretches over his firm chest right in front of her eyes.

'I don't know how I'll work with you for the next three years,' he tells her, rubbing his face in exasperation.

'Well, I saw a nice cliff on our way here, so, you know, you can always go for it.'

He gives her a side eye and puts on his sunglasses, unpeturbed.

'A pleasure as always, Clarke,' he mock-salutes her and follows after Lincoln towards the hotel.

Clarke counts to ten and repeats once again.

_Acting is my dream job._

**______________________________**

**Kyle Wick**

**Clarke Griffin** 13:01

I don't know if I can do this

 **Kyle Wick** 13:03

Pleeeease tell me you didn't set him on fire already, tomorrow's the science fair and I don't have time to come clean up your mess.

**______________________________**

**WILDCATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

**Bellamy Blake** 13:06

What the fuck have i gotten myself into

 **Raven Reyes** 13:10

don't be a drama queen, you know that's nate's job

 **Nate Miller** 13:12

I hate you Reyes

 **Raven Reyes** 13:12

I love you too

 **Bellamy Blake** 13:12

You guys are useless

 **Raven Reyes** 13:13

good, we need to stay on brand

**______________________________**

By the beginning of the table-read in the afternoon, Bellamy is familiar with the whole main cast. Well, Clarke's still a dick, Murphy is kind of a lovable dick, and Diana Sydney seems like a grown-up version of Clarke. But he likes Monty and Harper, so at least he won't be forced to spend his next three years working with dicks alone.

After countless snide remarks exchanged between them during the read-through that had director Wallace, executive producer Anya and everyone else in the room want to tear their hair out, Bellamy corners Clarke in the hallway.

'You know what, Clarke, let's just not talk to each other. Ever.'

She pretends to ponder his proposal, then lifts one finger in the air. 'Wow, that's the first intelligent thing I've ever heard you say.'

He runs his hand through his hair. 'My God, I give up. It's impossible to hold a conversation with you.'

'Right back at you,' she responds, crossing her arms over her chest. 'But fine, I agree. I'm up for denying your existence.'

'Fine.'

'Fine.'

He storms off and Clarke doesn't believe for one second that this arrangement will make her life easier. But it won't hurt to try.

'You're acting like a couple of kids, you know that, right?' Monty's voice has her turning around.

'He started it,' she shrugs. 'Seemed rude not to return the favor.'

He narrows his eyes slightly, kicking off the wall he was leaning on. 'I don't even get what you're arguing about. He's a pretty cool guy.'

Clarke snorts, then notices Monty's raised eyebrow and lifts her hands in defeat. 'Let's just not talk about him. You promised me a Mario Kart race.'

And so it goes. Clarke and Bellamy ignore each other throughout neverending  table-reads and rehearsals, only talking to each other through their characters. One would guess everyone else is relieved, but instead the whole cast and crew are on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's obvious to everyone except the two co-stars that the iciness is nothing but a cover for pent-up frustrations, and it's only a matter of time before one of them snaps.

As the days go by, it gets difficult for the two of them to avoid each other, not only because their schedules guarantee they have Special Clarke and Bellamy Time every single day rehearsing one thing or another, but also because they've both struck up friendships with their fellow cast members.

One day, Monty and Harper are waiting for Clarke so that they can leave for town when Bellamy's head pops through the door. Somehow they end up playing Mario Kart, because that's what happens when any person enters Monty's trailer.

Harper and Bellamy are in the middle of showering Monty with green shells when Clarke clears her throat behind them.  Monty refuses to feel guilty because this whole thing is ridiculous, but it's hard when Clarke's posture screams _betrayal_ and her eyes are shooting daggers at Bellamy.

The situation quickly escalates into a stand-off between Bellamy and Clarke, as it usually does, and Monty and Harper don't know whether to be amused or offended because the two are arguing about them like they're not there.

'We made plans to go out,' Clarke grits through her teeth.

Bellamy snorts. 'Oh _excuse_ me, I didn't know you owned them too.'

Clarke crosses the distance between them and jabs him in the chest with her finger. 'What the hell is your problem? In case you didn't notice, you're a Hollywood movie star, you don't get to give me shit about money.'

'I just happened to pass by the trailer and came in to say hi, I don't see how I've commited crime here.'

'You know we had plans, I talked about it over lunch. You are purposely messing with my life. That's not what we agreed to.'

'You think I listen when you speak? My life doesn't revolve around you, _Princess_. That may be hard to comprehend-'

Clarke throws her hands in the air. 'Okay, this isn't going anywhere. Have you ever heard about joint custody?'

And that's Monty's cue to step in between them, arms raised like he's Chris Pratt and they are two bloodthirsty raptors. 'We are not your children, guys. Now take a deep breath, sit your asses down and let's all play Mario Kart. You are both our friends and this thing you've got going on is getting out of hand.'

Harper passes them controllers. 'I agree. Sit down and, for the love of god, shut up.'

Clarke and Bellamy scowl but comply, and take seats that are farthest apart. They shamelessly trash-talk each other's vehicle choices, driving and controller gripping techniques, but it teaches them a lesson when Harper kicks both of their buts by winning every single race.

Or at least Monty hopes so.

Later they even end up going to town together. Monty and Harper stare at each other in disbelief, not quite sure how they managed to pull this one out. In the bar they are joined by Murphy, who orders a pink cocktail without batting an eyelash.

They even attract a paparazzi, because, although they are a group of people enyjoying drinks in a small town bar and Monty and Murphy are still Hollywood newcomers, Bellamy is one of last year's sexiest bachelors, Harper played a fan-favorite character in several Marvel movies and Clarke is, well, _Clarke Griffin_.

When the guy continues snapping pictures of them from the other side of the bar, Clarke decides she's not yet ready to deal with the media, so she goes out of the bar to get some air.

She's standing on the sidewalk, chilly air making her cross her arms over her chest. The street's stillness is disrupted only by muffled sounds coming from the bar's closed doors behind her.

A short while after, the door opens and a guy stumbles out of the bar, starts staggering over the pavement when he sees her.

'Wait, you're that naked chick,' he points at her, slurring his words.

Clarke ignores him, having dealt with this many times in the past months. Still, it shakes her up every time.

'Those pics were _sweet_ ,' he sneers, stepping towards her, and Clarke gets hit by the distinctive stench of vodka.

She turns to face him. 'Leave or I'll call the police.'

He throws his hands hands up in surrender just as the door opens behind them once again.

She turns and around and meets Bellamy's frown. Of course.

The drunk guy is surprisingly already on the other side of the street when Bellamy arrives at her side.

'Who the fuck was that?' he demands, following the guy with narrowed eyes, and there's something in his tone that rubs her the wrong way.

'I don't know, just a drunk douchebag.'

'What did he want?' Bellamy insists.

'He felt the need to share his opinion on my naked body,' she tells him bluntly, wishing he would just let it go.

Instead of continuing to argue, he sighs. 'I'm sorry.'

Somehow, that's worse than the nosy questions. 'Not your fault,' she retorts sharply.

He tilts his head, voice suddenly weary. 'Just accept the sympathy, Griffin.'

'Don't tell me what to do,' she bites back, and this is good, her whole body is alive because fighting with him is easier than thinking about her half-nudes circulating the internet.

However, he doesn't take the bait, just holds her gaze until her anger wears off and resignation takes its place.

'Fine, thank you,' she throws her hands in the air. 'Now go away before I punch you or something.'

His lips curl into a smile. 'Night, Griffin.'

She shakes her head. 'I hope the bed bugs bite you in the ass, Blake.'

**______________________________**

The actual filming ends up to be an never-ending string of days all blurring into one other. Night shoots are especially exhausting, and it's often the case that Murphy falls asleep on any available surface while Bellamy and Clarke are screaming at each other somewhere nearby. Monty and Harper play a game that consists of stacking as much as possible random stuff on Murphy whithout waking him up.

At one point Clarke and Bellamy are shooting a scene in which she's passing him in a corridor, and they keep yelling at each other because Bellamy claims _she's not showing enough emotion_.

Clarke is on verge of commiting murder, Murphy is asleep in a corner, and everyone else on set just wants to finish this and go to bed already. Even director Wallace, the resident jerk on set, is not as demanding as usual, but Bellamy won't let this go.

'I swear to God Bellamy, we are only passing each other by in a dark corridor. This isn't Lion King and I am not a baby lion watching my dad die!'

'So that's your excuse for not doing your best?' he asks in a condescending voice, arms crossed over his chest.

'I _am_ doing my best!'

'Clarke, I know what you can do. And being tired is not an excuse,' he says, then points in the direction of the set crew. 'Look at Nyko over there, he's still giving 100%!'

The cameraman in question shakes his head ruefully. 'Man, I'm really not. I just want to go to bed.'

'See!' Clarke beams. 'You're being unreasonable!'

Bellamy tilts his head. 'Oh, so it's unreasonable to expect your co-stars to actually try for once?'

'Fuck you,' she bites back, but still gets back in the position. Bellamy grins from ear to ear, and she flips him off.

Wallace gives them the sign, and once again she's her character walking towards Bellamy's, though this time she's holding his gaze with newfound ferocity. She walks past him with a look that could kill a grown man, yet unfortunately doesn't kill him, and then Wallace calls 'Cut!'

'That was excellent,' he tells them, and the rest of the crew grudgingly nod their agreement. 'Alright, we're done for today. Everybody, get some sleep!'

Bellamy gives her a told-you-so look, and she stops him with her raised hand. 'Don't say a fucking word.'

**______________________________**

Clarke first meets Raven when she comes visit Bellamy on set a month into filming.

It's one of the rare days when Clarke's not needed on set, and she's taken full advantage of that by staying in her leggings and an oversized grey hoodie. She's hanging around on set - today it's an abandoned warehouse - waiting for Monty to finish his scene so that they can go play Mario Kart in his trailer.

 _He_ is there too, she doesn't know why and doesn't care.

She's slouched on a huge bean bag chair by the wall when a stunning brunette enters the set, wearing leather shorts and high-heeled sandals like she just walked out of a magazine cover, carrying herself with that sort of intimidating confidence Clarke has always strived for. The brunette's gaze searches for someone, then falls on Clarke and flashes in recognition.

Before Clarke can even attempt to sit up or make herself appear any less pathetic, a pair of perfectly toned tanned legs is right in front of her. The brunette gives her a blinding smile, and it somehow reminds Clarke of that shark from Finding Nemo.

And then she realizes that's Raven Reyes.

'Hi, I'm Raven. You're Clarke, right? Do you happen to know where Bellamy is?'

Clarke doesn't even know what to focus on, the fact that Raven Reyes knows her name, that she's looking for her mortal enemy, or that she's the most gorgeous human being Clarke has ever seen. Either way, she has lost her ability to speak.

And that's when it gets even worse.

'Raven?' previously mentioned mortal enemy's voice asks in disbelief, and both Clarke and Raven turn to see him standing few meters away, eyebrows raised.

'The one and only,' Raven says, predatory grin back in place.

Bellamy chuckles and crosses the distance, gives her a tight hug. 'What are you doing here?' he asks when they finally let go of each other.

Raven shrugs. 'I got bored without you and Nate. And it was easier to come here than Ashville, Alabama.'

'What the fuck is Nate doing in Alabama?'

'Searching for inspiration, or something,' she makes a vague gesture with her hand. 'Honestly, I didn't want to know.' And then her attention plus her shark-like grin is back on Clarke.

Clarke squirms under her gaze and contemplates how humiliating it would be if she tried to get out of the bean bag gracefully and failed. Which she will, because that's impossible. Although probably not for Raven Reyes.

Bellamy seems to sense her thoughts and, looking down at her both literally and figuratively, he gives her that pitifying look. She wants nothing more than to flip him off, but she is not going to stoop so low in front of his supermodel girlfriend.

'Let's not bother Clarke anymore, Raven. Come on, I'll show you around,' he starts to lead Raven away.

Raven sees right through him, but doesn't say anything than 'Bye, Clarke! See you around!' and lets him lead her away, leaving Clarke alone to regret every single choice she ever made, because they led her to this mortifying moment right here.

In the end Monty has to help her get out of the bean bag.

**______________________________**

As if their schedules weren't packed enough with filming only, they also have training sessions at the gym which mostly consist of practicing fight scenes for the movie. Lincoln would be having the time of his life watching Clarke's poor attempts at karate if he wasn't such a good person. Instead, he gives her extra lessons in the evening, when everyone is either dead tired or pretentiously reading classic literature, like her mortal enemy.

He's so incompetent he couldn't even find a menacing enough hobby.

One afternoon at the gym Clarke just can't get this one sequence right. Broken down to simple moves, it's fairly easy, yet when she's supposed to do them all at once, there's always a leg or an arm in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Her trainer Atom is as patient as they come, so they try again and again, frustration rising inside of her.

In this scene she'll be disarming Bellamy and pinning him to the ground. That is, if she ever actually manages to do it right. It doesn't help that _he_ is doing push-ups on the other side of the gym, laughing about something with Monty, who's occupying an excercise ball and eating skittles.  He's really enjoying the fact that he's not required to do much fighting in the film. And Bellamy's muscles at work is, objectively speaking, probably a nice enough sight to watch.

When she does the sequence wrong for what seems to be the millionth time and groans in frustration, out of the corner of her eye she sees Bellamy rising from the mat, wiping his forehead with a towel and heading towards her.

Half an hour ago when she came into the gym, Monty waved at her with a smile and Bellamy scowled and rolled his eyes. Which pretty much sums up her relationships with the two of them.

Since then Bellamy's presence has been a nagging thought in the back of her mind and probably caused her sudden inadequacy to do a couple of moves in a row.

'I really don't need to hear your gloating right now,' she tells Bellamy when he approaches her. 'Come back in a few hours when my calves aren't on fire and we can have a fight to death.'

'Having difficulties?' he asks with a smug smile that has Clarke's hands itching to wipe it with a fist.

'Go away, Blake.'

'Not until you try the scene with me.'

She eyes him sceptically. Is he trying to embarrass her, make her death look like a training accident, or help her?

With a mental chuckle, she crosses out the last option. As if.

His eyes are watching her closely, challenging her, and she concentrates hard on not squirming under his gaze.

'Why?' Her chin raises in defiance, and he rolls his eyes.

'Scared?' he asks with a lazy smile, and her blood boils.

'No, but you should be.'

He laughs, but all Clarke hears is Evil Disney Villain Laugh. Maybe she watched _Sleeping Beauty_ with Kyle one too many times during her childhood.

'Come on, Princess. Hit me with everything you've got.'

Well, he did ask for it.

She lunges at him, twists his arm in order to remove the non-existant weapon.

He tries to fight her off, grabbing her waist, but she delivers a blow to his stomach with praticed ease and manuevres them until he looses balance and they topple on the ground. She's straddling his waist, pinning his underarms to the ground.

And he's grinning from eat to ear. 'See? It wasn't hard at all.'

She swallows hard, releases his arms and stands up.

He gets up from the ground, smug smile still on his face. She looks at him questioningly, trying to figure out his motive for helping her, and he shrugs it off. 'I don't need you messing up the movie for all of us,' he says, but there's barely any heat to it.

Clarke almost smiles, then settles for a curt nod. He leaves her standing there, the dynamic between them now frighteningly unfamiliar. Which means she can't help but bite back and restore the animosity she is comfortable with. And yes, she's not going to think about what that means. She's had enough of psychoanalysis after her dad died, and it wasn't pretty.

'You'll do that all by yourself,' she calls after him and hears him chuckle. She swears his shoulders sank in relief just a little, too.

Her eyes follow him as he heads back to his mat and Monty, whose shit-eating grin Clarke can see from where she's standing. Naturally, she ignores it, just like the fact that she can still feel Bellamy's hands burning skin on her bare waist.

Oh boy.

  **______________________________**

Days fly by and Bellamy barely has time to notice. They are almost done with filming, but he guesses there's no need to get sad about it, considering they'll go through the same ordeal two more times.

He'll miss having Monty and Harper around 24/7, and it will even be weird not having to be prepared for a fight with Clarke at any given moment. That sure helped keep things from getting boring.

However, after the fateful encounter with Diana Sydney during a late night shoot, he's ready to take all positive sentiments back.

'She grabbed my ass, Clarke,' he whisper-yells behind a large green screen where Clarke has dragged him to explain himself after he messed up his line for the fourth time.

She hits him in the chest, her face scrunching up in disguist. 'I don't need to know about your sex life.'

Bellamy already has to try and contain his exasparation. 'I'm not – the grab was unsolicited!'

She tilts her head, trying to determine if this is some kind of a nefarious scheme. 'I'm not saying I don't believe you, but-'

'Oh, so you're saying my ass isn't grabbable?'

'I'm not-' she starts, trying very hard not to start tearing her hair out, then takes a breath. 'What are we even arguing about right now?'

'I don't know,' he admits, leaning against the wall in defeat. 'I'm sorry, I'm exhausted and didn't plan on getting harrased by Diana Sydney today.'

She presses against the wall next to him and they stay silent for a moment. 'I mean, you could go talk to Wallace or-'

'Let us not kid ourselves, Clarke. It's fine, I'll just avoid her. It's only one more week, anyway.'

'It's not fine, Bellamy, but I understand. My mom worked with her a couple of times, said she was a bitch. If I see her grab your but again, I'll punch her in the head.'

He chuckles. 'Thanks, Clarke.'

'Anytime.'

She leaves him after they share a half-smile because someone from Hair and Make-up shrieks for her to come and get her face retouched.

He leans his head back and closes his eyes, enjoying the peace and quiet for a short moment before his eyes pop open in shock.

He interacted with Clarke Griffin and it left him with a smile on his face.

_What the hell is going on?_

_**______________________________** _

****At last the final day of filming comes. It's complete with Wallace's melodramatic speech, all around good-byes and a wrap party at the only bar in town. Clarke may or may not drunkenly exchange barbs with Bellamy for the entirety of it.

Before she knows it, she's at the airport with Monty, Murphy and Bellamy, lounging in the overcrowded waiting area with sunglasses on their heads like they are a boyband posing for an embarrassing group picture. She's listening to her mother talk on the phone about guest lists for the big wedding next year, making funny faces at Monty and unsuccessfully ignoring Bellamy's distracting warmth beside her.

When he tries to get her attention to pass her the bottle of water Monty bought for her, her mother hears his voice and abruptly stops talking about wedding business.

'Is Bellamy there? Tell him I say hi.'

Clarke freezes and steals a quick glance at the oblivious Bellamy. Her mind chanting _what the hell_ , she turns her head slowly, not quite believing what she's about to say.

'My mom says hi.'

For what it's worth, Bellamy doesn't even take his eyes from the book on his lap. 'Oh, say hi back.' As an afterthought, he adds, 'And tell her I'm coming to dinner next week.'

Her mouth now fully hanging open, she forwards his message in a deadpan voice.

'Oh, good. Marcus'll be happy to hear that.'

Having decided enough is enough, Clarke gets up and moves out of Bellamy's hearing distance. ' _I'm sorry_ , did I just fall into a parallel universe in which you're having dinner dates with Bellamy Blake?!' she demands in a hushed voice.

Her mother doesn't seem perturbed at all. 'You know he and Marcus did that film together.'

'Yes, but-'

'Anyway, you know you're always welcome too, honey, just let me know if you're coming. I got to run now, they are waiting for me.'

Before Clarke can even say anything, her mother is already hanging up with a cheerful 'Love you!'.

She stares at her phone for a good while, her brain unable to comprehend anything that has happened in the last few minutes.

She returns to her seat in shock, her fellow cast members engrossed in their books and phones, barely noticing her.

She doesn't yet return to her magazine, instead gets lost in her thoughts trying to figure out when her life got so weird and complicated.

What she doesn't know, however, is that things are just getting started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I was waiting for my high school graduation exam results so I was pretty much the embodiment of stress in a human form.  
> Also, I'm sorry if there are few mistakes left, I wrote this in chunks and just didn't have the willpower to proofread it again at the end, plus I didn't want to keep you all waiting any longer.  
> Next up we have press tour madness, and I'm really really really excited to write it.
> 
> Let me know what you think about the story so far :)


	4. Press Tour pt. I

_'The Ark is already this year's winner. Everyone believed it would be yet another mediocre Hunger Games rip-off, at least that's what a relatively unknown director and a cast consisted of bunch of newcomers had us think. But we couldn't have been more wrong. It tore down every last stereotype of its genre, its artistic shots didn't come off as pretentious, and the Ark itself, despite its stereotypical high-tech design, felt like a character of its own - closing in on the protagonists when a scene was packed with emotions, stretching out into its empty corridors to convey the loneliness one can feel when trapped in a flying metal box. This masterpiece is beautiful in every way, from breathtaking cinematography to actors' masterfully conveyed emotions. Bellamy Blake is absolutely wonderful once again and Clarke Griffin is a most welcome surprise. Instead of giving us the same old two hours of action-packed saving humanity from this or that disaster, The Ark actually asks at what point do we stop being worth saving. In all honesty, it's one of the best movies we've seen in a very long time.'_

_-_

_'If you're going to watch one movie this year, make sure it's The Ark.'_

✮✮✮✮

-

Clarke jumps out of the car as soon as it stops to a hault in front of her destination, a fancy hotel where the crew is gathering before the world premiere.

She is _so_ late.

Weird thing is, she doesn't care much about what anyone important will say, she's only picturing Bellamy's smug face when she shows up half an hour late, just like when they first met.

Her heels click along the marble floor as she runs through the lobby and goes on to do the whole stick-your-hand-inside-the-elevator-and-annoy-everyone-inside charade. She even meets her manager somewhere in between ( _'I'm not angry, Clarke, I'm just disappointed_ ,' Monroe brushes off her appologies).

She bursts into the suite, Monroe talking animatedly on the phone right behind her.

And there he is, of course, grinning like he's just won the lottery. He's wearing a stupid tux that should be _banned_ because it has her reaching for a glass of acid to get rid of the fucking _butterflies_.

'Oh look who finally decided to grace us with their presence?'

'Fuck off, Bellamy.'

He smiles even wider, and turns to the audience in the room. 'And unfortunately, she left her manners at home.'

The entire room has stopped to observe her entrance, and now they return to their business. The novelty of _The Ark_ 's co-stars fighting has worn off somewhere around the second week of filming, and turned from delightfully amusing to oh-god-when-will-they-ever-stop.

She only glares at him in passing, heading straight towards the refreshment table.

'Clarke, _no_ ,' Monroe calls after her in a motherly stern voice, removing her phone from her ear, but it's too late. Clarke has already chugged down a glass of champagne.

She's definitely going to need it if she wants to survive the upcoming hours.

At least her dress is cute.

The media has pretty much left them alone throughout the whole filming - they've had a couple of fan encounters in the woods and in the town, a few paparazzi checking in on them. But it's all about to change now, she knows that.

And even if she didn't, the meeting with Anya and the PR team last week would have been a nice wake-up call. They spent hours discussing PR strategies, various scheduled interviews and the world tour. In other words, the PR guys gestured wildly in front of endless Powerpoint slides as the main cast tried to escape Anya's all-knowing gaze and get away with dozing off.

It turns out there was no need for them to waste hours in uncomfortable office chairs because the whole meeting could have been summed up like this: ' _Blake, Griffin. Don't fuck this up'._

Clarke manages to steal only one more drink before frantic event managers start ushering everyone out. Bellamy has kept to his side of the room, unfazed by the commotion around him and nailing the disinterested Hollywood movie star part. Which makes Clarke frustrated, because she's in no way a newbie to premieres and red carpets, her being a former critically-acclaimed child actor and all, yet right now she's on the brink of throwing up her lunch all over his pretentious shoes.

He's getting last-minute orders from his no-nonsense publicist, Indra, who Clarke definitely likes.

Pity that she's stuck with Bellamy Blake, out of all people.

Before Clarke knows it, the whole crew is outside the hotel, and Monroe is pushing her into one of the sleek town cars that have been waiting. And she's still on the phone - Clarke swears that thing is permanently attached to her manager's hand, and can only watch in awe as Monroe multitasks her way through all the problems caused by Clarke.

During the ride, Monroe once again goes through the list conveniently named _Things Clarke Should Not Say Or Do On The Red Carpet._ She gets to _insult her co-star, actually it's better if you ignored him completely_ just as they pull up in front of the theatre.

'You can do this, Clarke,' Monroe tells her with an unusually cheerful tone in her voice, which makes Clarke wince.

That's it. She's screwed.

Twenty minutes later, Bellamy stands where he was instructed to and looks towards the feral beasts in the secluded press area. Moving his head to give them shots from different angles, something which he found incredibely awkward at the very start of his Hollywood career but now does practically on auto-pilot, he tries not to think about how ridiculous this situation is too much.

Under the unrelenting camera flash attack, his gaze falls on _The Ark_ 's promotional banners and his chest fills with pride. The movie they made is spectacular, and he's not saying that just because he's biased. He'll be the first to admit that he's starred in some god-awful productions before his big break (Raven and Nate are tied in the second place).

He's just about to move to the next spot when he sees someone approaching him out of the corner of his eye. Before he can say or do anything, Clarke Griffin walks up to him and presses against his side.

Even as his arm goes to her waist on its own accord, Bellamy blinks in confusion, his mind suddenly a compilation of question marks popping up in different sizes and fonts. He's mindful enough to keep his slightly disinterested _Hollywood smile_ ™ from faltering, but he does, however, turn his head ever so slightly towards her and grit through his teeth, _'What are you doing?_ '

They already did the obligatory co-stars shoot when they arrived on the red carpet, featuring the respectable amount of distance between them. They weren't obliged to interact in front of the world together anymore, only to do a couple of solo interviews and poses.

She keeps her gaze on the cameras as she explains nonchalantly, 'My ex-almost-girlfriend just arrived and I really don't want to face her.'

Her hand sneaks over his chest, and he can _feel_ her smirk both at his muscles tensing and at the sudden attack of camera flashes quick to capture the magazine-selling possesiveness.

'Also, I saw Harper's friend making heart eyes at you, so I figured I'd make your life miserable and lower your chances of getting laid tonight.'

Bellamy's head whips down to deliver a glare, and meets her mischevious eyes.  They are sparkling blue, emphasized by the make-up, and if they almost make his knees buckle – well, no one needs to know. And don't get him started on that fucking dress. He barely acknowledged any of Indra's _well-meaning advice_ because of that fucking dress. Bright red and hanging close to her skin, in it Clarke's the fucking sun and shines brighter than the thousands of flashes currently aimed at them.

She holds his gaze, rising up to the challenge like always.

Naturally, all tabloids feature a photo of that exact moment on the next issues' covers.

-

They've reached that wonderful stage of their relationship where Clarke will tell you Bellamy's a big-headed primadonna, and he'll swear she is a spawn of the devil in a pretty shitty disguise.

Which means _The Ark_ 's PR team is feeling incredibely brave when they send the two of them on Jimmy Fallon's show the day after the premiere.

Having exchanged pleasantries, he asks Bellamy and Clarke, 'What's the atmosphere on set, how's everyone getting along?' 

They know the answer to this. It's been drilled into their heads by the PR ever since the press tour started. There's only one acceptable answer, and Bellamy gives it. 'We're like a family.'

Clarke nods in agreement, then turns to Bellamy with a sweet smile, 'And to me, Bellamy's the loving, yet pestering aunt that just doesn't know how to stop talking.'

Everyone in the studio collectively stops breathing and gapes at the stage. Did she just say that?

Bellamy, however, doesn't bat an eye and bites back without hesitation, 'In that scenario, Clarke, you are definitely my third favorite niece.'

In a loft across the town, Anya contemplates if she should smother herself with a throw pillow right now and be done with this whole fucking mess.

In a hotel room in London, Raven snickers to herself and texts Nate _'this is the best day of my life'_

In a tour bus somewhere outside of Phoenix, Nate shakes his head and texts Raven back _'your life must be pretty pathetic then_ '.

In the studio, Jimmy Fallon looks between Bellamy and Clarke with his mouth slightly open, uncertain how to proceed. They are smiling from ear to ear at each other, seemingly not aware of the fact they are being broadcast across the country.

After the short awkward pause, Jimmy changes the subject with skillfull ease, and yet, even _he_ seems relieved once their segment is finally over.

The moment they step off the stage, Sterling hands Clarke the phone.

' _What the hell was that?_ ' Anya's voice demands.

Clarke shrugs and tries to trip Bellamy over. 'I was annoyed with him.'

Anya sighs in exasparation. ' _No one cares if you like him or not, Clarke. But in the future try and not be annoyed with him on national television, if that's not too much to ask.'_

Turns out, Anya was wrong.

In the morning, _everyone_ seems to care whether they like each other or not.

PR report includes gossip sites' articles, a swarm of confused tweets and trending gifsets on Tumblr with captions variating from ' _jimmy's reaction is everything'_ to ' _i can't tell if they should fuck each other or go for a few rounds'._

From that fateful Jimmy Fallon appearance, Clarke and Bellamy are a wild card. It is never possible to know what the two of them are going to say or do. In their wake they always leave the need for serious damage control, but with their banter and constant jabbing they also charm both the audiences and the hosts, which in turn means Buzzfeed writes articles upon articles about their apparent sexual tension. PR works overtime and, having accepted defeat, repeats ' _bad publicity is still publicity'_ to the producers.

They also have a special chart for measuring how catastrophic each public appearance was. It ranges from _Bellamy tweeted a meme at Clarke_ to _Clarke 'accidentaly' spit into Bellamy's cup in the middle of a live talk show_.

By this point, Clarke and Bellamy have silently reached an understanding. Which means they've mostly gotten over each other, but they've continued with the antagonazing they fell into by accident because it is easy and it is fun. They are not enemies, and they are not friends. They are co-workers who realized they can actually stand each other, but still act like they can't.

Raven calls it _frenemies without benefits_ , and then hits Bellamy on the head because 'the benefits would be so fucking good, what are you waiting for?'

-

They are in Paris today, and she's not even sure she'd know that if Murphy didn't tell her about that weird cheese tourist tour he managed to persuade Monty and Harper to join him on in the evening.

They arrived in the afternoon and they'll be on the plane again tomorrow after the premiere. They are in yet another hotel, and it's not that Clarke has anything against hotels, they are mostly fun and she loves the mini soaps, but for the past week her life's been a revolving door of generic hotel furniture, premiere outfits planned for her in advance, and cities she's too exhausted to experience further than the ride from and to the airport allows her to.

But there's another reason for her bad mood.

Her mother sent her a picture of her, Marcus and their newly adopted dog. She can't tell who looks happier in that picture, which is great, but today is that kind of day on which she doesn't see herself fitting into her mother's life, and her heart sinks just a little.

On top of that, Kyle has been sending her snapchats of him hanging out with a couple of teachers he works with. She knows it's stupid, her best friend can and should have other friends - they are not in middle school, for God's sake - just like she knows she can't resent her mother for being happy when that's all she wants for her.

None of it stops her from feeling lonely as hell, though.

When she finds herself flipping through same three channels, a cooking show, Terminator 2, and a soccer match, over and over again without registering one word of french, she shuts off the tv and stands up impatiently, almost spilling wine from the glass in her hand.

She doesn't want to be alone.

Pacing back and forth, she drinks big gulps of wine and makes a terrible, terrible decision. Seeing as Murphy has dragged Harper and Monty to a cheese cult meeting, and she'll never be drunk enough to intentionally seek out Wallace's company, it only leaves one person she can go to.

And he's right across the hall from her.

Before she can change her mind, she finishes her glass and sets it on the table. She walks up to a mirror, gathers her all-over-the-place hair into a messy bun and takes a deep breath.

_Fuck it, let's just do this._

She grabs the opened wine bottle and exits her room.

Under the hallway's flourescent lights she doubts her decision for a short moment, thinking he's maybe busy entertaining a french model or whatever, but she's come this far already (yes, she took about three steps from her room but it's the thought that counts, alright) and Clarke does nothing better than following through her bad decisions.

So she knocks on the door, and moments later it becomes obvious that this was the mother of bad decisions, because the door opens to reveal Bellamy in a white T-shirt and sweatpants hanging low on his hips, looking far more disheveled and comfortable than she's ever seen him. He's wearing glasses – she's never seen him in them before and it was probably for the best.

He looks fucking _adorable_.

He blinks at her in confusion as she stands there like an idiot, her mouth too busy watering at the sight of him to speak. Thankfully, she breaks out of it before he can see through her, and raises the bottle in her hand.

'Wanna hang out? I have wine.'

He eyes both her and the wine suspiciously, and she can't really blame him. The two of them don't exactly hang out. Ever.

'Alright,' he opens the door wider to let her in, still unconvinced of her intentions. 'But I can see you already drank the wine.'

'We'll get more.'

She enters his room and has a quick look-around. It's pretty tidy, only a couple of books scattered over the coffee table. One book is laying open on the sofa, which means he must have been reading before she interrupted him.

On a whim, she goes to the sofa, sets the bottle on the table, and picks up what turns out to be a battered copy of the Illiad. Her fingers trace the gold letters on the cover, and her mouth stretches into a smile.

She lifts her gaze and finds his narrowed eyes focused on her.

'Nerd,' she says, putting down the book, but the smile on her face removes any heat from it.

He rolls his eyes, fighting back a smile of his own. 'Alright, Griffin. Spill.'

She looks at him in question, and he elaborates. 'What are you doing here?'

She could have opted for a snide remark or a joke, but something in his unwavering gaze makes her admit the truth. In this sterile hotel room, in this unfamiliar city, with this not-exactly-friend-not-exactly-enemy, she suddenly feels small, and she has to keep her voice from shaking.

'I just felt so alone.'

If he is surprised by her honesty, something their interactions were never based on before, he doesn't show it. Instead, he tilts his head from left to right like he's weighing his options before settling for one.

'Fine. We're doing this,' he announces, comes to her side, grabs the bottle and flops down on the sofa. 'But we're gonna need more wine.'

She sits down next to him and watches his throat work as he takes a large gulp straight from the bottle before passing it to her. 'And we're _not_ braiding each other's hair,' he adds as an afterthought.

She laughs and takes a swig before turning to him. 'Now tell me, how the fuck did that awful Trojan horse plan even work?'

They talk about whatever their minds come up with, with just one exception. By some unspoken agreement, they steer from anything personal. At some point they have another bottle of wine brought to them, and it disappears just as fast as the first one. Clarke is feeling fuzzy inside, and even in her slightly inebriated state she knows alcohol is not the only the reason for it. There's warmth radiating from Bellamy's body, from his smile and from the way he nudges the glasses up his nose with his knuckles.

When they somehow end up on the topic of horoscope signs and Clarke learns he was really into astronomy when he was a kid (of course he was, _the nerd_ ), she demands he shows her his favorite constellations.

He has just enough reason left to point out there are barely any stars visible here because of the light pollution, but Clarke is already pulling apart the curtains and stepping out onto the balcony. He has no choice but to follow.

As he predicted, the sky is more purple than black and without any stars. They are surrounded by typical parisian buildings, and despite their best efforts to locate it, the Eiffel tower is nowhere to be seen. Below them, cars wheeze past the hotel every now and then, disrupting the quiet of the street.

Before she realizes what she's doing, she turns her head towards Bellamy and finds him already watching her. They are standing side by side, elbows resting on the railway.

'Thanks for not closing the door in my face,' she says, leaning into him, and he lifts his arm and tucks her under it instead of answering. Somewhere in the back of her mind an alarm starts blaring, but she's too drunk and too content to care.

When she's leaving his room at 2 am, she turns to face him in the dark. She has drunk more than she should have, and now she doesn't know what to make of everything that has happened. This sudden weird camaradie between them has left her unease, and she has to make sure this was just a momentary cease-fire.

'We still don't like each other, right?'

He tilts his head ever so slightly, his eyes unreadable. 'Sure.'

Clarke nods and crosses the hallway to her room, his door closing behind her and allowing her to exhale in relief.

Not liking each other is much easier than dealing with her confused bundle of feelings. There are several big _no-no_ s in the Hollywood rulebook, and she's pretty sure crushing on your co-star with two more years on the contract is one of them.

The next morning Bellamy is woken up by a hangover pounding at his head and someone pounding at the door. He stumbles out of the bed and manages to reach the door before his head explodes.

Monty takes one look at him, his eyebrows raised, and saunters past him into the room. 'You might want to check your phone.'

Bellamy kind of wants to either strangle Monty for waking him up or spare his life so that he can bring him some Aspirin, but settles for obliging his wishes and looks around for his phone, his eyes doing their best to focus on his surroundings, and failing miserably.

Monty takes pity on him and digs out his phone from under the covers.

Bellamy sits down on the bed next to Monty and grabs the offered phone. 'I swear to God, if you woke me up because of a good John Cena meme again, I'll punch you in the face.'

Monty's smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. 'I wish it was that.' He hesitates, then asks, 'How much do you remember about last night?'

His mind scrambles to recall last night's events, but the details are still fuzzy. Cold dread creeps up the back of his neck as he unlocks his phone and faces an onslaught of unread messages, missed calls and thousands of notifications.

 _'What the fuck?_ ' he asks under his breath, and proceeds to open Twitter.

And there it is.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

His mind goes into overdrive and, suddenly, he's sober and painfully aware of exactly what happened last night.

He and Clarke hung out, drank one glass too many, and now the entire world knows it because they've seen what he's just looking at right now.

A grainy picture of them _cuddling_ on the balcony.

Bellamy closes Twitter and quickly goes through unread texts, cringing at Nate and Raven's and ignoring the string of question marks from Octavia. It turns out Indra has already landed in Paris and is meeting him at the hotel in half an hour. Bellamy doesn't know if he is more relieved or terrified.

Horrifyingly, there's also a text from Marcus. Who is, you know, pretty much Clarke's stepdad.

Yep, he's definitely _not_ dealing with that right now.

Instead, he grabs the first clean shirt he can find and throws it over his head, runs a hand through his hair before barging out of the room, Monty at his feet.

'Clarke, wake up,' he pounds at the door across from his, noting that Monty is entirely too amused by this disaster of a situation.

It takes a few long minutes before she finally emerges from her room in shorts and a tank top, her hair sticking in every direction, her feet bare, and her furious gaze fixed on Bellamy.

'What the hell, Bellamy? I hope for your sake the whole building is on fire, or something.'

He can't help but roll his eyes, his arms crossing over his chest. 'If the whole building was on fire, you'd already be dead considering how long it took you to get out of bed. And it's not the building that's on fire, it's our fucking lives.'

Monty intervenes, 'Stop being so dramatic, Bellamy. And Clarke, check your goddamn phone.'

Clarke glares at both of them, but retreats to her room in search of her phone nonetheless.

She picks it up from the nightstand and returns to the door. 'If it's another stupid meme-'

Bellamy presses his lips together to stop a smile. 'It's not. It's something far worse.'

'What can be worse than memes?' she asks in honest bewilderment as she types in the passcode.

She immediately frowns at the unusal amount of notifications and missed calls. He can tell the exact moment she finds The Picture, as her thumbs stop impatiently swiping and freeze over the screen.

'That,' he answers simply.

Half an hour later, he's hunched over in a chair, his head too heavy and Indra's voice too loud.

'So you were just cuddling with your co-star on a balcony in Paris, _platonically_ ,' she sums up his weak justification in a deadpan voice.

Bellamy flinches, steeling himself for an inevitable rebuke. 'How mad are you going to get if I say yes?'

She pinches the bridge of her nose, then grips the edge of the table to steady herself. 'Bellamy Blake, you know better than this.'

'Come on, it's not like I was caught snorting coke off her stomach!'

Indra's lips press into a thin line. ' _Did_ you snort coke off Clarke Griffin's stomach?'

'God, no,' he grimaces.

She pushes off the table, 'Alright, let's try and keep it that way. And no more snuggling with Clarke Griffin in plain sight.'

One of her interns pops their head through the door, gestures with the phone. Indra sighs in resignation, then leaves the conference room to go deal with another Bellamy-induced crisis. There seems to be an abundance of them recently.

Bellamy and Clarke are forced to sit through a video-conference with Anya and the PR team. They find out that a reporter camped out in the building across from hotel, hoping to snap a picture or two of Hollywood movie stars lounging on their balconies. It's safe to say he got way more than that.

The PR report inculdes a surprising amount of tweets enthusiastic about the co-stars being more than just colleagues, and several gossip sites ready to uncover their supposed torrid affair.

Bellamy and Clarke are scolded for drinking and appearing in public, which is the Hollywood equivalent of drinking and driving. Mostly though, everyone is thankful they didn't do anything worse than snuggling, and it's not like generated promotion for the movie is unwanted.

All in all, there's not much any of them can do, but issue a couple of ' _no comment_ ' statements.

Although they haven't had time to talk in private all day, Bellamy meets Clarke's eyes over the table as someone drones on about damage control in the background. He knows they both stand by what they agreed on in the dark of his room.

It's easier for everyone that the two of them keep their distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have a couple of things to say.  
> 1) It turns out that, for me, there's no better motivation to write than shitty internet. And since I'm on a vacation in the middle of nowhere, you can expect more frequent story updates. I'm sorry for the long wait, I hope to have the next chapter ready in a few days as an apology :)  
> 2) I keep changing my mind about the pacing of this story - I have already written many scenes but I'm not yet sure how to make a story that makes sense out of them. Thanks for putting up with me!  
> 3) I'm also not quite sure what you guys would like to read as I continue with this, I have a couple of ideas about other character's side stories, like Raven's past and her relationship with Wick, Monty/Nate, even Abby and Kane since they are just adorable, and in this universe they are the Hollywood power couple. But maybe I'm the only one who would find that interesting and you guys would rather I stick to Clarke and Bellamy's shenanigans. Let me know your thoughts on this :)


	5. Awards Season pt. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I just want to say thank you for all your support. 
> 
> A month ago when I finally felt brave enough to share my writing with you all online, I never imagined I'd receive so much kudos and lovely comments.  
> English is not my first language and at first I had this paralyzing fear that I'll offend people with my poor grammar structures and incorrect use of more complex words. I'm still not entirely free from it, but that's for the best since it only pushes me to improve my skills (and I am sorry for the mistakes that manage to hide from my often impatient proof-reading).
> 
> Once again, thanks for everything.
> 
> Now, let's get back to what you all came here for :)

The thing about our fast, technologically advanced and interconnected world is that you never know what will happen when you release a movie into it - with so many variables affecting how the public will accept your creation, it's impossible to predict success.  _The Ark_ was always meant to earn a lot of money for _Mt Weather Studio_ , but even they never dared to dream of something like this.

There has been a lot of theoretizing about its success, and the critics mostly agree: the cinematography pulls you in within seconds, the story is compelling, the characters have you either strongly root for them or detest them- whatever the case, you end up cursing _Twilight_ for bringing back trilogies. As if you don't hate it enough already.

However, what sets this production apart and makes it more lucrative and globally popular with each passing hour is not just the previously mentioned story or talented (and good-looking) actors.  
It's the fact that _The Ark_ succeeded in the unthinkable - it enamoured both 40-year-old critics with a disdain for anything bearing the slightest resemblence to YA distopia, _and_ the obsessive Twitter-savvy teenagers.

It's a combination that proved to be unbelievably effective, and launched a bunch of newcomers into Hollywood stratosphere over night. It pretty much goes like this: _The Ark_ 's main cast woke up one morning and couldn't recognize their lives anymore.

Murphy has quickly become a fan-favorite, with his snarky comments during interviews and drunk tweets in which he praises everything from _Winnie the Pooh_ to Bellamy's abs.

Everyone loves Monty and his vines, which are often featuring at least one of his fellow cast members. Because of his bright personality and mischevious smile he has been declared as the cast's precious cinnamon roll, even though he's the one who's responsible for all the pranks.

Both Harper and Harper's character have been dutifully recognized as badasses. She now has legions of loyal teenagers ready to scream ' _GOALS_ ' whenever she posts something online.

Clarke is back in the public eye after years of relative quiet. She doesn't regret her decision to come back, although reporters are more ruthless than she remembers them to be. She can't go a day without someone bringing up the almost-nudes, and now her non-existant relationship with Bellamy Blake is up for discussion too. But there are wide-eyed teenage girls telling her how much they look up to her character, so it's all worth it.

Bellamy's the one whose life tabloids frequently featured since his big break last year. But even he, as one of the two main faces of this insanely successful production, felt the change. Whereas before there were paparazzi waiting in front of his gym every now and then, ever since _The Ark_ premiered there have been reporters following him _everywhere_. And every single time, he is asked about Clarke. 

Outside the supermarket. On the way to his doctor's appointment. In the bushes by his jogging trail. (He almost fell into a ditch when one of them jumped out in front of him and scared him to death as he started his run half-asleep at 5 a.m.)

And as for the relations between Bellamy and Clarke, it's an universally acknowledged fact that before things can get better, they have to get worse. _It's always darkest before the dawn_ , and all that. It certainly explains the setback in their budding - friendship? relationship? hostile acquaintance? who knows anymore? - a couple of weeks back.

It happened one early morning in the guest room of a morning talk show. The main cast had left the room after a quick briefing with the their PR chaperones and the talk show's hosts to get ready, leaving only Bellamy and Clarke inside.

'Go away now so I can change,' she told him, looking forward to putting some space between them. Even just being in the same room as Bellamy was incredibely energy-consuming lately. At any given moment she had to be ready to fight both him _and_ the stupid attraction she may or may not feel towards him.

But being Bellamy, he only snorted at her dismissal. 'I'm not going anywhere, but you feel free to go look for another changing room.'

'I am not leaving.'

'Suit yourself,' he shrugged, like it didn't concern him, and without any warning took off his shirt.

Clarke was momentarily speechless, because, come on, there was a shirtless Bellamy two feet from her. Give the poor girl a break.

As he proceeded to unbutton his pants, Clarke gritted her teeth and decided he was so not going to win this round of Bellamy vs. Clarke.

So she dropped her purse and reached for the bottom of her own shirt, pulling it over her head and noting the way Bellamy's smirk faltered for the shortest moment. Feeling smug herself, yet still incredibely frustrated, she demanded, 'Why do you have to make everything a challenge?'

'Why do you always accept it?' he countered without missing a beat, and took off his jeans.

Her whole body on fire, her cheeks absolutely refusing to blush, she pulled down her skirt and stepped out of it.

'Someone has to stand up to you,' her chin raised in defiance.

He took a step towards her, his gaze never going lower than her face. 'Did it ever cross your mind that the same could be said about you?'

Her mouth fell open in outrage, even as she moved closer to him like he's a black hole and she couldn't escape his gravity. He was now pretty much towering over her, but she refused to be intimidated. Instead, she stabbed a finger into his very naked, very firm chest. 'I'm not the one who acted like a judgmental jerk from day one.'

His face was suddenly only a few inches away from hers. 'Well, I am not the one who got the job only because of my last name.'

Hurt flashed in her eyes, but within moments she was back on the offensive. 'Is that what you think of me?'

'Is that what _you_ think of _me_?' Bellamy knew this had gone too far, but he just couldn't stop himself. This had been building up ever since their disastrous first meeting - now the time had run out and the bomb exploded. 

She was on the brink of tearing out all of her hair. 'For God's sake, can you not answer the question with a question?'

'Can _you_?'

Their eyes were burning, ferociously locked together, and neither could look away.

She suddenly registered warmth radiating off his nearly naked body, and didn't realize she had licked her lips until his gaze dropped from her eyes. She opened her mouth without quite knowing what she was about to say, when the door opened with a loud bang and they jumped apart like they were burnt.

Three figures froze at the entrance, their faces contorted in various degrees of shock. Monty let out an 'Oh my god!', Murphy covered his eyes in horror (' _My eyes!_ '), and Harper eyed their fit bodies appreciatively, tilting her head in a _not bad_ gesture.

Bellamy and Clarke faced their friends with as much dignity as they could muster, considering they were caught gazing into each other's eyes while practically naked.

They spent the next twenty minutes glaring at each other while assuring those three that they had been simply conversing, and also just happened to be in their underwear at the time.

No one seemed to believe them, though.

During the interview, Bellamy had some time to think. Clarke answered all the questions primly and properly, but the way her smile didn't quite reach her eyes told him that his thoughtless insult had gotten to her. It was obvious that she herself had doubts about her talent. Which was ridiculous - everyone could see that she was the soul of the movie, embodying her character in a way that left everyone breathless. It was why all the internet trolls and stuck-up critics stopped questioning that particular casting choice the second the movie was out, and suddenly agreed that Clarke Griffin was the perfect choice.

Obviously, Clarke somehow missed that memo. And for some reason, that didn't sit well with him.

The talk show hosts then showed a clip from the movie, and since his life was at that point 87% cruel irony, they chose that stupid scene in which his and Clarke's characters pass each other in the hallway.

He remembered the way he had antagonized her, admittedly because he had known what she was capable of, yes, but he could have gone about in a different way. And as he now observed her staring at the screen, her rigid posture showed that she remembered too.

He sighed, his mind straining to understand his own behaviour. He had never been the most outgoing guy, but he also never lost his temper quite this quickly in anyone's presence. There was just something about Clarke Griffin that seemed to bring out the worst in him.

And he had to make this right.

When they were done with the show, he waited for her in the hallway. She exited the room and instantly narrowed her eyes when she saw him. Before she could start off another tirade, he lifted his palms up. 'I want to apologize for what I said.'

She didn't buy it, and opted for crossing her arms over her chest. 'Why?'

Bellamy sighed. 'Let's just go back to mild antagonism. I'm sorry for insinuating you got your job only because of who your parents are. You're an amazing actress, that's a fact.' He hesitated, then added, 'Although, to be fair, you can't deny it didn't help that you're a Griffin.'

She gave him an incredulous look. 'That's the shittiest apology I have ever heard.' She paused, then said, 'But fine, I'm sorry for calling you a jerk. Though you can't deny you've been judging me from the moment we met.'

'Touche,' he laughed, and offered his hand. 'Truce?'

Any remains of hurt on her face were suddenly gone and replaced by an arched eyebrow and a mischevious smile. ' _You wish_. At this point there may be a standoff in the Bellamy vs. Clarke battle, but I play to _win_.'

He shook his head, watching her leave with smug confidence in her hips, and yet he couldn't stop the smile from taking over his face. 

If she wants to play, they'll play.

-

By the time they finish the world tour the whole cast is _done_ with interviews. Main reason: the questions are always the same.

 _Did you expect The Ark to get so popular?_ (No. Well, maybe Wallace did, because he truly believes he's a genius.) 

 _If you could play any other character from the movie, who would it be?_ (Everyone wants to play Harper's badass character.)

 _Who is the biggest prankster on set?_ (They keep insisting it's Monty, but no one seems to believe them. A mastermind is hiding behind that innocent smile, and the bastard has the world wrapped around his little finger.) 

It gets increasingly harder to answer these questions with a sincere smile once you've landed in Hong Kong an hour ago and you've lost your inner sense of time somewhere in Australia.

By the end of the _extended_ tour (courtesy of _Mt Weather Studio_ and their intent on squeezing every last drop of money from it ), Clarke and Bellamy are flown back to appear on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show.

Bellamy points out that they'll do more damage than good since they are sleep deprived (which is proved only moments later when Clarke actually  _agrees_ with him). But the studio's executives are determined to take advantage of the unexpected success and if that means sending two zombies to promote their movie, then so be it.

Bellamy and Clarke are in the car on their way when he rests his head against the cool window and groans, 'I swear to God, if we have to play one more _Never Have I Ever_ game...'

Two hours later, they are sat on an uncomfortable white sofa, Ellen DeGeneres grinning from ear to ear. 'I thought we could play this game,' she bends over to retrieve a couple of sticks.

'It's called _Never Have I Ever_.'

Clarke covers her laugh with a cough and Bellamy starts counting to ten. Their amused eyes meet while Ellen explains the rules, and just like that, something has shifted and fallen into place.

Even if neither Bellamy nor Clarke realize it just yet.

-

Once the whole promotion circus is finished, they are finally back home, and yet they continue to be paraded around like show ponnies.

The Ark is getting bigger and bigger, the cast is a media sensation, and on top of the movie actually being great, the fact that there is a shortage of white male leads in it made both a lot of people happy, _and_ a lot of bigots angry. All in all, it's done additional wonders to the movie's promotion and success at the box office.

Folks at the _Mt Weather Studio_  have been rubbing their hands together for quite some while now, but they are ready to kiss everyone from director Wallace to cameraman Nyko once the awards season rolls around.

The celebrations start with _The Golden Globe Awards_ , where _The Ark_ reaps five golden statues: Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Bellamy), and Best Supporting Actor (Monty). Wallace delivers one too many melodramatic speeches, Bellamy thanks everyone with a smirk that sends social media into a frenzy, and Monty just holds the statue and gapes at it in awe.

Wherever they go, however, the cast feels like a group of kids staying up later than they should on a school night.

People's Choice Awards turn out to be special because Clarke Griffin finally meets Nate Miller. But, as it usually is when Bellamy and Clarke are in the same place at the same time, the encounter goes neither simply nor smoothly.

Clarke is keeping an eye on formally dressed people milling around, trying to avoid any stuck-up acquaintances of her mother, when Monty turns to her with a troubled expression. 'Oh God.'

The thing you need to know is, Monty doesn't panic. Ever. He's the calm, collected member of their otherwise intense and crazy group. That's why his rigid posture immediately puts her on edge. 'What?'

Monty points at Bellamy and a person he's chatting with by the wall. In an unreadable voice he says, 'That's Nate Miller.'

Clarke takes a closer look and recognizes Bellamy's friend as the famous singer. She's sure she has heard that the two of them are pretty tight, but can't come up with one reason why that would bother Monty so much. Now impatient, she asks, 'Yes, _and_?'

He continues staring at them, ignoring her question.

'Monty, you're freaking me out. What is it?'

In that exact moment, Nate Miller's gaze falls on them, and after a quick word with Bellamy both of them head towards where Clarke and Monty are standing.

Mortified because they've been caught staring, Clarke steals a glance at Monty but doesn't get the chance to find out what has made him so unnerved, because Nate Miller is now standing right in front of him. His curious gaze sweeps over Clarke for a short moment before settling on Monty.

'Hi, Monty. Long time no see.'

Monty is completely stuck for words, and Clarke, as if this situation wasn't strange enough, turns to Bellamy in search of answers. His raised eyebrows tell her he hasn't got a clue what's going on either. At least that's comforting.

'Hi,' Monty finally responds, but is saved from any further cringe-worthy interaction by Indra, who has come to drag both Bellamy and Nate away to an interview.

'I'll see you guys later,' Nate promises them both, though he has eyes only for Monty, and then he's gone.

Having waited a couple of seconds just to be safe, Clarke turns to Monty in a hushed voice, determined to get the answers she needs. ' _What the hell was that?_ '

Monty exhales deeply and finally meets her eyes.

'That was Nate Miller. My ex.'

-

Before the ceremony has begun, she's found an empty seat at the bar. They are waiting for everyone semi-important to have their picture taken on the red carpet outside, and she lost Monty in one of the hallways where he bumped into a friend. 

She is nursing her watered-down drink, thinking about how weird it is that Monty dated Nate Miller during their final year of college. As far as she can tell from Monty's cryptic explanation, it was a mutual break-up, something of a we-are-going-to-different-places-and-don't-want-to-weigh-each-other-down thing.

She wouldn't exactly call this unexpected turn of events a cruel twist of fate, it's more like fate has a bad sense of humor and now she's the only one cracking up over Clarke's and Bellamy's ridiculously intertwined lives. 

She feels like the more she tries to distance herself from him, the harder the Universe pushes her back, and she can't, for the life of her, figure out _why_.

As if on cue, that's when Bellamy and Nate appear at her side.

'How predictable,' Bellamy smirks at her in her natural habitat, leans against the bar next to her and orders a drink. Clarke narrows her eyes, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Nate observing their interaction with unhidden interest before adressing her. 'I can't believe Bellamy's managed to hide you from us for this long.'

She frowns in confusion. 'Us?'

'Oh, Raven and me.'

'Well, I've kinda met her,' she winces, memory of that tragic incident still a fresh wound on her pride.

Nate grins even wider. 'Yeah, I heard. But nevermind, you've got to tell me just how much of a self-entitled movie star Bellamy is on set?'

'I once threw a clapperboard at him,' she says, smirking at Bellamy's grimace before turning back to Nate. 'Does that answer your question?'

'You're cool,' Nate grins, then hits Bellamy on the chest with the back of his hand. 'Dude, she's cool.'

Bellamy rolls his eyes. 'She's something, alright. Now let's go get you those awards.'

And they sure do. Nate wins Favorite Male Artist and Favorite Song. Clarke, Bellamy, and Monty haven't come here in vain either, as they leave with awards for Favorite Movie, Favorite Movie Actor, and Favorite Movie Actress. At this point, no one else is surprised when a member of The Ark's cast and crew is called up to the stage and handed an award.

They storm the rest of the film award events, never going home empty-handed.

And then it's time for the crown jewel of the awards season. The Oscars. Complete with pretentious strolling around the red carpet, insincere congratulations and the endless series of categories no one seems to care about.

Ah, what a night.

* * *

 

THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES

CORDIALLY INVITES YOU AND A GUEST TO THE PRESENTATION OF

**THE 88TH ACADEMY AWARDS**

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH, 2016, 5:30 P.M.

DOLBY THEATRE

HOLLYWOOD CALIFORNIA

 

DOORS WILL CLOSE PROMPTLY AT 5:15 P.M.

BLACK TIE

RSVP

* * *

The eyes of the world are on _The Ark_ 's cast tonight.

They stick together on the red carpet until Anya whisper-yells at them, 'Stop moving as a group, you are not _gazelles_!'

 _The Ark_ is up for more awards than any other movie this year: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Monty), and Best Picture.

It's unclear who's more excited - the cast and crew or the entirety of the internet. Even as they take their seats in the huge auditorium, their phones can't load oncoming tweets fast enough. The internet's wishes range from ' _good luck tonight!_ ' to ' _if my sweet cinnamon roll Monty doesn't have the stupid statue_ by _the end of the night, I will personally find everyone responsible and shove it up their asses'_.

It's a complete success from the beginning. Award after an award is passed into _The Ark's_ filmmakers' hands, and even the presenters seem to be genuinely happy for each win they announce.

Sometime in the middle of the show, Monty's name is proclaimed from the stage, and everyone around him jump to their feet in euphoria.

Clarke, Bellamy, Murphy and Harper are all pretty much sobbing by the time Monty's voice breaks in the middle of thanking each of them personally.

After that, they have to sit through the less popular awards, and Bellamy seriously regrets not bringing any _Xanax_ for the crew.

On his left, Clarke is biting her expensive manicured nails, and on his right, Monty is picking at the hem of his shirt. Down the row, Murphy is nervously tapping his foot against the floor, and Harper is just sitting there with a terrifyingly focused stare directed at the stage.

Bellamy doesn't know how he hasn't already combusted from all the pent-up agitation he's surrounded with. He's on the edge of his seat himself, of course, but they are all making him positively _insane_.

Soon enough it's time for the most prestigious award. Best Picture.

He doesn't even register who's presenting it, his own heartbeats threatening to outvoice the presenter's announcement.

'And the Oscar goes to...'

The envelope is ripped open, and then one name echoes around the hall.

' _The Ark_!'

There's a moment of vacuum in which the cast and the crew are processing what they just heard, cameras wheezing around them and capturing their wide eyes and gaping mouths.

And then it's utter chaos and deafening noise. Someone all but tackles Bellamy, and he realizes that the hair obstructing his view is blond.  _Clarke_.

She presses her face into his chest, her nose brushing against his suit jacket. Although he's high on adrenaline, his body sags in relief just a little bit.

She lets him go and flashes a blinding smile, before they are both ushered towards the stage by their ecstatic friends. Monty squeezes his shoulder in passing, while Harper and Murphy each kiss one of his cheeks at the same time.

Anya and her team of producers deliver a short speech, but Bellamy doesn't remember a single word from it. On the stage he's squeezed in between Harper and Murphy, his cheeks hurting from smiling so wide and his chest bursting with pride. He recognizes the same emotions on others' radiant faces, and realizes that this right here is what being on top of the world feels like.

Much later, when the after-parties have started to die down, Bellamy is waiting for his driver in a deserted lobby connected to one of the building's side doors.

Clarke comes in, a small smile still playing on her lips and heels dangling from her hand. She blinks in surprise when she notices him leaning against the wall, but doesn't say anything. 

He nods at her, and she salutes with her free hand, obviously a bit tipsy and still high on the tonight's triumph. Continuing on her way, she passes him and heads to the door in complete silence.

Just when he thinks their interaction is over, she reaches for the door handle, then pauses and turns to face him with a surprisingly sober expression.

'We did good, Bellamy.'

Before he can come up with a response, she sends him a half-smile and disappears into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is spiralling out of control. I pictured finishing it in about 10 chapters max, but I keep adding additional chapters because I open Microsoft Word with the intention of writing a short introduction to a mostly finished chapter, and then four thousand words later I realize I have written a completely new unplanned one. Stay tuned for a party at the Griffin-Kane household, as well as Bellamy and Clarke's long time coming heart-to-heart!
> 
> Also, the gazelles comment is borrowed from Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Sergeant Terry Jeffords (if you haven't seen the show, I wholeheartedly suggest you do. It's a 100% drama-free delight.)
> 
> Just a reminder, I love hearing your thoughts and suggestions!


	6. Pre-production pt. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, well, well, look who's back - it's me, and I'm really sorry for taking so long to update this story.  
> If there's anyone left who's still invested in it, I want you to know that I do plan to finish it. Though, in all honesty, I can't promise frequent updates because I'm starting university in a few weeks, and it's pretty likely I'll be a complete and total mess.

Clarke sips her champagne, zoning out on an internationally famous director who's been telling her about his dead bug collection for the last fifteen minutes.

Yep, that's how the Hollywood's finest party.

She could have been saved by Kyle, but he's a jerk who's having entirely too much fun watching her getting bored to death from across the room. That's what best friends are for, right?

Her mother is in full posh hostess mode, welcoming guests at the door with her dashing fiance right at her side. Another guest arrives, and after a couple of air-kisses and exchanged pleasantries, Marcus sends an 8-time-Oscar-nominee in the direction of the refreshment table. Clarke doesn't avert her eyes in time, and catches Marcus placing a kiss above her mother's brow.

She got used to it, she really did, but the smallest part of her still gets uncomfortable when she sees their affectionate interaction. Especially when it's an intimate moment like this, away from the prying eyes.

She's just about to return her attention to the bug-collecting director when the doorbell rings again, and the smooth yet sincere smile is back on her mother's face. The door opens, and reveals three guests. It takes her less than two seconds to recognize those wide shoulders and the confident stance. 

Annoyingly, she realizes her lungs have stopped working for a moment.

Frown deepening on her face, she watches Bellamy Blake kiss her mother's cheek and get enveloped in a hug by Marcus.

Now, it's one thing abstractly knowing that they keep in touch with her co-star, but it's an entirely other one actually seeing them hugging like they're old friends. 

Clarke watches him introduce his two friends to the genuinely curious hosts. Many guests have brought someone with them, plus-one being a socially acceptable practice, but because he's Bellamy Blake, apparently he gets plus-two.

The supermodel and the singer. Of course.

It's not that Clarke has anything against them. They seem like the kind of people she would choose to be friends with herself, but she's not sure she likes the way they look at her and smile as if they know something she doesn't.

Before any of them see her, Kyle appears at her side, having finally decided to show mercy. He interrupts the director in the middle of his sermon, makes a hasty apology, and drags her off to look for something stronger than champagne in the kitchen. And she wouldn't be Clarke if she objected to that.

A while later, the party is in full swing and Clarke's just dealt with a crisis including two elderly directors and a disagreement on _Titanic_ 's casting. She comes back to the living room, frustrated and sweaty, to find Kyle, _her Kyle_ , chatting happily with Bellamy Blake.

She snatches another crystally clear glass of champagne from a waiter's tray and gulps it down, her eyes narrowing when Kyle laughs loudly at something Bellamy has said. She sets the empty glass on the nearest available surface with more force than necessary, unaware that an elegant actress nearby raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, and saunters over to them.

Before she even gets the chance to say something, Kyle notices her coming over, claps Bellamy on his back and turns to her with a huge grin. 'I like this guy, Clarke.'

She grits her teeth and smiles sweetly, trying to keep her temper in check. 'Well, we're not keeping him.'

Bellamy rolls his eyes, his voice patronising. 'I'm not a puppy, Clarke.'

Out of nowhere, Raven Reyes appears and throws her arm around Bellamy's shoulder. 'The internet would not agree,' she tells him, then greets Clarke with the enthusiasm of a small child who has finally gotten the promised pony.

It takes a while for Bellamy to capture her attention, and interrupt her in her tipsy praise of Clarke's dress. He gestures at Kyle and begins to make introductions, but Raven's suddenly ice-cold voice puts an end to it before he finishes saying 'this is Kyle.' The atmosphere goes from _joyous exchange between new acquaintances_  to _first circle of hell_ before Raven's brusque words even registered with Clarke. ' _Yeah, we've met._ '

Kyle doesn't even bother to say anything, only mirrors Raven's seemingly disinterested look.

Bellamy and Clarke's eyes meet in question, before they remember they're supposed to be at odds too - or not? 

This is getting too complicated.

And their friends should really stop meeting like this. Seriously, Bellamy and Clarke won't be able to bring them anywhere.

Fortunately or not, Nate chooses that exact moment to pop his head into their circle, wincing at the all-around awkwardness. 'Whatever is happening here, we don't have time for it. The list will be announced in half an hour.'

Clarke frowns in confusion, her focus shifting from Kyle and Raven's weird iciness to the excited look on Nate's face. 'What list?'

'The sexiest men alive ranked by number,' he explains impatiently, 'Monty texted me.'

'Wait, _Monty_ texted you?' Clarke blurts out, but Nate doesn't notice the dubiousness in her voice.

'Yeah, now let's get going. I told him to meet us at Bellamy's.'

Now it's time for Bellamy to look at him in puzzlement. 'At _mine_?'

' _Yeah_ ,' Nate answers slowly, looking at them like they've gone insane. 'What has gotten into you guys tonight? Now let's go say bye to our hosts, and get going.'

To be honest, Clarke has no idea how she gets pulled into Nate's plan. It was never a question if she'll join them, and if it was, she's pretty sure nobody would ask her for an answer. 

Kyle kisses her cheek and tells her they'll talk tomorrow. To her surprise, Bellamy extends the invitation to Kyle, but he thanks him and blames tomorrow's early class.

Raven mentions something about a flight and a fitting, and then she's gone too - though not before kissing both Bellamy's and Nate's cheek, and informing them that no matter how well they rank on the list, she's still the sexiest of the three. 

And then Nate's pushing Bellamy and Clarke towards the front door. On their way they say goodbye to Abby and Marcus, who, for some reason, don't seem bothered at all by the fact that Clarke is going to Bellamy Blake's house at 1 am. 

Clarke's not sure how to feel about that.

Twenty minutes later, she exits the back of Bellamy's car and stands in front of his residence. From outside, his house is the embodiment of a stereotypical Hollywood movie star's home - modern design, harsh lines, and dimmed outdoor lights. The lush greenery that surrounds it gives the illusion of privacy, and the smell of pines that fills her loungs puts her at ease. Realizing she fell behind Bellamy and Nate, who are already approaching the end of the cobbled path leading to the house, she hurries after them. 

Monty and, for some reason, Murphy, are waiting for them at the front steps.

On their way over, Nate explained to Clarke that his manager knows someone who works at the magazine that's publishing the infamous list, and they told him both Nate and Bellamy will be featured. And since there aren't many things they can compete at, having different professions and never up for the same awards, Nate jumped at the opportunity of beating Bellamy at something, even if it's as frivolous as a rank in the _sexiest men alive_ list.

She's not sure how Monty or Murphy fit into all this, it's possible they didn't want to miss out on either Bellamy or Nate going down tonight. Though, Murphy's probably here just for the free booze.  

Like he's not a ridiculously well-paid actor too.

Bellamy leads them inside, and she's pleased to see that there's none of that minimalistic, black and white themed furniture that often makes fancy homes feel cold and impersonal. His is soaked in warm colors, mostly brown and green. The whole ground floor is an open space, and she follows him into the living room, where an entire wall has been transformed into a huge bookshelf.

She's never seen anything more beautiful.

The others continue on their way into the kitchen to raid Bellamy's fridge, but she stays behind. Compelled to have a closer look, she approaches the shelves and runs a hand along colorful spines, smiling to herself when her fingers come across a copy of _The Ark_ by Thomas Jackson.

'We owe him a lot.'

Her head whips around, and she finds Bellamy looking at the book under her fingers with a serious expression.

'Yeah, we do,' she agrees.

They don't even yet know just how much. 

-

A week before they're off to film the second movie, the cast is at the annual Mt Weather Studio's fundraiser gala, once again being paraded around like show ponies. Bellamy forgot how annoying that was.

Under the watchful eye of their intimidating producer, they put on over-the-top smiles and nod along at self-centered old men's stories. The second they are given permission to leave, though, they scramble in search of their coats and the nearest exits.

Bellamy makes his way across the lobby, his gaze set on the sliding door promising to lead him away from the over-perfumed crowd. He pulls his coat over his shoulders, his mind once again trying to make sense of Clarke's odd behaviour tonight.

She's been acting more prickly than she did in quite some time, and it confuses him because he thought there were no real hard feelings between them anymore. But apparently he was wrong.

He shakes his head slightly, like he's willing himself to let this go, and finally reaches the exit. The door lets him through, and outside a chilly wind brushes against his skin. He walks along the building in the direction of the parking lot, and soon reaches another exit. Weirdly, it is surrounded by an unexpectedly large and noisy crowd.

It takes him a second to realize those are paparazzi. It takes him two to realize they are after Clarke.

She's standing there, frozen, giving an A+ portrayal of a deer in the headlights. Before he realizes it, he's rushing towards her, pushing the paparazzi out of his way without much consideration. He catches some of what they are shouting at her, and makes his way with newfound determination when his pieces together what's going on.

When she's almost within his reach, the shouting becomes overwhelming.  

 _'Do you miss your father?'_ _'How is it like, 7 years after Jake's death?' 'What do you think about your mother dating again?' 'Is your mother marrying Marcus Kane?'_

Clarke is barely holding back tears, her mind unable to comprehend what is happening. She pushes someone away, finally coming to her senses and beginning to make her escape, when a strong arm sneaks around her waist and starts pushing her forward. Her body tenses, preparing to fight them off, but when she looks to the right, she comes face to face with Bellamy. She backs down without realizing, her body relaxing significantly, and starts cooperating.

She does her best to match his long strides and turns her face away from the cameras, choosing to focus on Bellamy. There's a frown on his face as he pointedly ignores the reporters calling out his name, following them like a swarm of wasps, now shouting questions about their relationship.

He only lowers his head to her ear and asks, 'Where's Lincoln?'

She struggles to think, because there are camera flashes and unbearable noise everywhere around her, she's disoriented and so very grateful that Bellamy is there to help. 'I sent him home.'

Bellamy doesn't say anything, but she can feel the disapproval of her judgement. Or maybe he's just trying very hard not to punch anyone. Clarke knows she would have already done that, if she hadn't been taken aback by the ambush.

They reach a car Clarke vaguely recognizes as Bellamy's just as the building's security finally catches up on the situation. The paparazzi take one last 500$ shot of _#bellarke_ entering a car, before they scramble and disappear through the cracks like cockroaches. An out-of-breath security guy comes running to the car, and starts apologizing. Bellamy, now impatient, just waves him off, and gets into the driving seat. Clarke follows his example.

'Where to?' he ask after they are both seated, silence and darkness a stark contrast of what they just experienced. Clarke stares into the distance outside the window, her messy emotions starting to catch up with her, and tries to keep her voice even.

'It's the anniversary of my dad's death.'

Bellamy stays quiet for a moment. 'Yeah, I figured.'

She turns to face him, and meets his surprisingly gentle eyes. She takes a breath, then answers his question.

'Anywhere but here.'

She doesn't register any of the surroundings as they hit the road. Her blank stare falls on houses and trees, but they don't seem like more than grey shapes under the faint streetlights. When Bellamy stops the car, she lifts her gaze and finds that they are at a drive-through. She looks at him in question, and he informs her that they are getting milkshakes.

After a conversation with a star-struck girl who handed them two ridiculously large milkshakes, they are back on their road. They don't talk, but Clarke welcomes the silence. She needs time to recuperate, and thankfully, Bellamy seems to understand this.

Clarke is already feeling calmer when he pulls over somewhere in the hills. 

She tries a weak joke, 'You're not planning on killing me, right?', and can't help but smile when he says in a deadpan voice, 'Not today.'

She follows him to a small clearing at the edge of the hill overlooking the city. He lowers himself onto the grass, and almost lazily starts to drink his milkshake from the straw. Clarke takes in the breathtaking scenery, her mouths stretching into a small smile, and after a while sits down next to him.

They drink in silence, tucked away from everything and everyone in the city below them. She sneaks a glance at him, corners of her mouth tugging up when she realizes he's relaxed and unhurried, like he'd be content with just sitting there and waiting until she's ready to speak, even if it took all night.

She observes the twinkling city lights spreading as far as she can see. It almost seems like there's no end to them.

All of a sudden, she hears her shaky voice tearing through the quiet night.

'I don't want to resent my mother for being happy.'

Bellamy takes time to respond. 'Do you? Resent your mother?'

'I don't mind her moving on,' she says, avoiding the answer. 'I wouldn't expect her to spend the rest of her life alone.'

After a moment, she comes out with the truth, her chin starting to shake. 'What bugs me is that she's known him since drama school.'

Bellamy's eyes close, feeling Clarke's conflicted pain when he realizes what she means.

'Which suggests that she could have fallen in love with him while she was still with your dad,' he finishes her unspoken thought.

Clarke nods, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. 'She swears that's not what happened, and I guess it doesn't matter now. In the end, I just want her to be happy.' She adds quietly, her voice on the verge of breaking. 'And he makes her _so_ happy.'

Knowing it won't provide much comfort, Bellamy tries, 'Marcus is a good guy, though.'

Clarke turns to him with wide, teary eyes, and the hurt in them threatens to split his own heart in half. She shakes her head, the first tear sliding down her cheek and reaching her wobbly chin. 'And that makes it impossible for me to hate him.'

She leans into him just as he lifts his arm to tuck her under it, her hand twisting the fabric of his shirt and pulling him closer.

For the first time in a very long time, she lets herself open her heart and talk about her dad.

About how he always burnt something while cooking, but never gave up on it, about his ever-patient dealing with the reporters, about their trips to the beach where they collected half-broken shells.

Her dad insisted they are still beautiful, even more so because they came across an obstacle and they still endured.

It is hard to overcome difficulties, but the scars they leave serve only as a reminder of our strength.

Bellamy smiles. 'That's scarily similar to what my mom used to say.'

'Yeah?' 

'Yeah. She was probably the toughest person I knew.'

Clarke's voice is barely louder than a whisper. 'What happened to her?'

'A drunk driver hit her on her way from a shift at the hospital. They told me she died instantly, like that changed anything. She was dead. And it's not like I had time to feel sorry for myself, there were bills to pay, and Octavia - my sister - was barely 16.'

She looks at him in surprise. 'I didn't know you had a sister.'

'Yeah, that's not something I ever mentioned in public. It would have put her in the public eye, and neither of us wanted that. She has the right to a normal life.'

'What does she do?'

'She's studying to be a family lawyer,' he says, unable to hide pride from his voice. 'Soon she'll be out there picking fights with neglectful parents in both her and my name.'

'That's quite a mission,' Clarke says, impressed.

'It's probably my fault,' he shakes his head, but still smiles. 'I let her watch _Legally blonde_  too many times when we were young.'

Clarke smiles, and is suddenly compelled to pry further. 'What happened after your mother died?'

He doesn't seem to mind answering. 'Thankfully, I just finished college, so we sold the house and moved to a crappy apartment in LA.'

Her eyebrows lift in wonder. 'You got custody of Octavia?'

'Yeah,' he shrugs, 'they were hesitant because I had no income, but in the end I got lucky. I was cast for an independent movie, the pay wasn't much but we got by.'

She wipes furiously at the remains of her tears with the back of her hand. 'I feel like such a privileged asshole right now, for complaining when you've had it much worse.'

He turns to look at her. 'Clarke, this is not the Grief Olympics, I can be sad and you can be sad without it being a competition.'

She snorts. 'You sound like my long-abandoned therapist.'

'From your tone I guess therapy didn't end well. I'm glad then, that I got Cato instead.'

'Cato?' she asks in confusion, followed by a sniff.

'My dog. I named him after a Roman senator.'

She snorts again, any remaining shakiness gone from her voice. 'Of course you did.'

'Hey, there's a pretty cool story behind it.'

'I'm all ears,' she says with a sweet smile and a hint of sarcasm that doesn't go undetected. He gives her the side eye, but she's grateful when he tells the story nonetheless. She actually is really curious.

'Okay, so, there was this guy, Marcus Porcius Cato. He was a Roman senator who finished his every speech by saying  _Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam_ , which means  _furthermore, it is my opinion that Carthage must be destroyed_ , no matter what the speech was on. It's hilarious,' he grins. 'Also, calling a dog Cat-o confuses a lot of people.'

Clarke looks at him in disbelief for a moment, and then laughter starts bubbling out of her chest. She laughs and laughs, leaning into Bellamy and resting her head against his shoulder. After a while, a content sigh escapes her lips.

'That's the best thing I've ever heard,' she tells him, and his chest rumbles as he chuckles.

'You're in minority then. My sister wasn't as amused.'

'Yeah?' she lifts her head. All of a sudden, it feels incredibely important that she finds out everything she can about Bellamy and his life, including his obviously close bond with his sister.

'Yeah. Back when I first got Cato, I told her it was cool actually, because she was Sister O, and he was Cat O, although he was a dog. So I should have probably called him Dogo.'

Clarke laughs again, her cheeks already aching from smiling so much. 'And what did she say?'

Corners of his lips tug up. 'Something along the lines of _Bell, I love you but you're an idiot_.'

Clarke chuckles, resting her head back against his shoulder. Whether she liked it or not, fondness for Bellamy was suddenly A Very Real Emotion nested somewhere inside her chest.

In the same time, her heart hasn't felt lighter in months.

When he drops her off at her place, her throat hurts from talking and laughing under the stars for hours. He walks her to her door, everything around them still asleep, even as faint sunlight starts to spread along the edges of the horizon. She raises herself on her toes and presses her lips against his cheek in goodbye.

Without either of them acknowledging it out loud, the truce has finally been reached.

So what happens now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story about Marcus Porcius Cato is the kind of knowledge my brain chose to keep from my two years of Latin classes. So yeah. That can certainly give you an idea about what kind of person I am. 
> 
> This chapter was unusually dialogue-heavy, and that was a real challenge for me. I hope I didn't fail completely, even though I've always been intimidated by dialogue tags. As always, your thoughts are most welcome!


	7. Filming pt. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what do you know? I'm still alive, 'still' being the operative word. I've survived my first semester at the university, and now I'm basically sleeping 12 hours a day. It's taken a long time for me to finally sit down and finish this chapter, and it wouldn't be here if it weren't for everyone who's been kind enough to leave an encouraging comment and make me get a move on.  
> This chapter is for you x

In retrospect, they have no one to blame except themselves.

And Cage Wallace. But we'll get to that later.

What starts the ball rolling is the PR's idea that Clarke and Bellamy should go do one last interview in the wake of fruitful awards season, before they are cooped up on set for two months. Just to keep everyone's interest in the trilogy.

They go on _The Late Late Night_ _with James Corden_ , and he asks Clarke, 'So, you're single, right?'

It kind of goes downhill from here.

James thought it would be a good idea to play a game he calls _Live Tinder._ Basically, random guys come up to the little podium and Clarke has to either swipe left (sentencing them to a fall into the ball pit) or right (sending them to a chair where they await further judgement). She's even got a huge glove made out of foam, with the pointed index finger ready for swiping.

What happens is that Bellamy laughs at her and meddles into her decision-making progress. After he shit-talked every single one of Clarke's candidates ('What's with the hair? This isn't 2008.', 'Seriously, Clarke? That shirt with those pants? And you're _still_ swiping right?') and they've bickered throughout the whole thing, James turns to them with a gleeful look which clearly screams  _trouble_.

Oh, no.

James goes to Clarke's side and puts his arm around her shoulders, bringing her closer like they are a couple of middle school kids about to exchange their secrets. In front of a dozen cameras and an international audience.

'Okay, let me ask you something, and you have to be honest. If it was Bellamy standing up there, what would your choice be?'

The audience is immediatelly sent into frenzy, whistles and laughs growing louder as the anticipation builds. Both Clarke and Bellamy freeze, but James acts like he doesn't notice it. He's already pushing a reluctant Bellamy towards the platform, while a mortified Clarke covers her face with her hands. Once Bellamy is at the position, he regains his confidence and even does a twirl for Clarke. James is shouting 'What's it gonna be, Clarke?' and the audience is going wild.

'Well, you see, based on the looks alone,' she turns to the audience, 'let's be real, I'd have to swipe right.'

Cheers and whistles almost drawn out her next words. ' _But,'_  she regains their attention and sets off a string of disappointed boos, turning towards Bellamy with a sweet smile, 'I know for a fact he'd ruin all his chances once he opened his mouth - so, sorry, Blake, the ball pit it is.'

She swipes left with that ridiculous glove.

Bellamy smirks, shaking his head slightly. The noise in the studio is overwhelming, James Corden is bent over and almost tearing up from laughter, but the watchful eyes in the audience and, subsequently, the entirety of the internet have something else to focus on - Bellamy looks straight at Clarke and mouths a single word.

' _Liar_.'

He then proceeds to throw himself gracefully into the pool, even bows once he's out and back on his feet.

James brings them both in for a hug, thanks them and reminds his audience that _The Ark_  Blue-ray is out now, before the screen fades to black.

In her office a few blocks away, Indra pours herself another drink. 

**______________________________**

**Lincoln Woods** 11:55

I take it that means you don't need me to run interference between the two of you anymore ;) ;) ;)

 

 **Mom** 11:55

Clarke, please call me when you see this.

 

 **Kyle Wick** 11:57

This has definitely been the highlight of my year so far

**______________________________**

**Raven Reyes** 11:56

THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

 

 **Nathan Miller** 11:59

good job, really, from the bottom of my heart

 

 **The Best Sister Ever** 00:00

?????????????????????????????????

 

 **Scary Publicist Lady** 00:02

You've just made both your and my life 100000000x more miserable. Congratulations, I didn't think that was possible.

**______________________________**

**watsontomysherlock:**

i can't believe clarke griffin swiped left on bellamy blake and he called her a liar oN NATIONAL GODDAMN TELEVISION

19,452 notes

 

**griffinblake:**

is this real life ????????

736 notes

 

**justbellamyblakethings:**

calling bae out on national television

1,479 notes

**______________________________**

**ARK CO-STARS DATING?**

Last night, Hollywood's newest favorite heartthrob may have hinted at a romantic relationship with his co-star Clarke Griffin, daughter of the elusive actress-director duo...

[click for the whole article]

 

**BELLARKE SECRET AFFAIR REVEALED**

In a last night's segment on CBS' Late Late Night With James Corden, co-stars Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin implied they are romantically involved...

\+ more

 

**HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR NEWFOUND INFATUATION WITH BELLAMY BLAKE**

  1. Look at this picture here, and swoon over this adorable puppy holding a real golden retriever puppy. It's too much.
  2. Accept that you've probably already lost him to our gorgeous fave Clarke Griffin, according to their last night's tv appearance (watch the video below). #bellarke, anyone?



 + click for more

 

**BELLARKE IS REAL**

Yes, that's right. Everyone's favorite co-stars revealed that their on-screen sexual tension and longing stares have less to do with acting, and more with real life. To our delight, the whole story is now unrolling, and we've had multiple sources confirm that the couple has been going steady for months: 'They became pretty close on set, you know how it is with working late and always being around each other. I'm surprised they've managed to keep it a secret for this long.'

_[read the whole article]_

**______________________________**

 

The official response to everything has been _'No comment'_.

Clarke thinks she should save everyone some time and wear a sign with that statement around her neck, instead of having to say it, shout it, write it thirty times a day.

A week after the infamous talk show appearance the world has mostly moved on. Somebody else got divorced, and someone got arrested for tax evasion. Hollywood's attention span rivals even that of a goldfish. 

That doesn't mean that either paparazzi or her passionate fans have left her alone. She blames Bellamy for this one, even though she hasn't said it to his infuriously handsome face. Other than her whisper-yelling a ' _have you lost your damn mind'_ the moment they were off camera, and him shrugging it off, they have yet to acknowledge that momentary lapse of judgement on his side.

Clarke doesn't know what to think, honestly. It's not like he was wrong. She enjoys both his physique and his company, though _he_  doesn't have to know that. But in the end, they are celebrities, it's their job to put on a show.

Right?

Hey, if they don't talk about it, that means they don't have to deal with the ever-changing dynamic between them. And contrary to popular belief, they have actual work to do.

That's how they find themselves whisked away on another filming spree. This time around the trailers are just a bit shinier, their hotel rooms roomier, and Harper, Monty, and Murphy all get personal assistants too.

The first movie was a smashing success, so no one is surprised that _Mount Weather_ studio heads will apparently sell their firstborns to get a repeat if they have to.

Murphy says it all while admiring a crisp croissant over breakfast one morning. 'They are buttering us up, but I can't bring myself to care because, honest to God, if there was a fire, I would save this croissant over at least two of you.'

Clarke tries not to think about which two out of three of them Murphy is talking about, and shares an amused glance with Bellamy. Harper raises her eyebrows and moves the plate out of Murphy's reach like she's prying a bottle of whiskey from an alcoholic. 'That's enough pastries for you, don't you think?'  

They are moving quite a lot too, never spending more than a couple of days at the same location. The sequel is mostly them travelling back in time to prevent the apocalypse, which apparently means they shoot everywhere from rainy Paris to subzero Alaska.

It's fun. Everyone clicks together and seems more relaxed than the first time, except for their _beloved_ director. 

Wallace acts even sketchier than before, lashing out on poor interns and randomly disappearing from sets. But hey, _Mount Weather_ will have someone's head if the sequel is not as good or, preferably, better, and it's not hard to guess whose. Even Wallace managed to put two and two together.

Working side by side with Bellamy again is, well – different. To be fair, they have been working together for the whole last year, not just on set. Thanks to the press tour and constant public appearances, she's got used to his comforting presence by her side.

They still bicker about everything, yes, but there's an undertone of playfulness to it. Since that same playfulness often feels too much like playing with fire, she's cautious. Trying her best to stay professional.

They've exchanged numbers for purely logistic reasons. There have been so many things they are required to do together, it's easier if they have the means to coordinate. They've been texting back and forth every couple of days, and it's been only about their whereabouts and timetables. Short and strictly professional.

Then one afternoon she gets a text.

 

**______________________________**

**Prima Donna Blake**

Are they really writing fanfiction about us?

sure, there's this really good one in which you die & I become a media mogul widow

Sounds fun.

we can always get drunk and roleplay it for the internet

Yeah let me get back to you on that.

**______________________________**

 

When she first sat down with the script, it took her fifteen minutes to get to The Scene.

It's not unexpected. It's not forced. It's in character and fans will be estatic. She couldn't think of one valid complaint, even though it would have been cool to shove it into Wallace's face. 

She's an actress. A professional.

And she'll have to make out with Bellamy Blake.

In the beginning, the scenes are mostly innocuous. For the first time since signing on these movies she barely sees Bellamy at all because their characters are separated for the better part of the sequel. Which means he and Harper do a lot of cool fight scenes and Monty, Murphy, and her are stuck in a _vent_ for a week. Between Monty's claustrophobia, Murphy's terrible puns and her own high-strung nerves, Clarke's honestly glad they make it out alive.

Even though their schedules are conflicting, she still finds herself at Bellamy's side all the time. Eating breakfast half-asleep after an exhausting night shoot. Chatting to the make-up artist while he's in Hair & Make-up. Always in a seat next to his during meetings.

Clarke tells herself it's only because they got so used to having each other around. And she's also smart enough not to question her own sleep-deprived reasoning on this matter.

Last week of filming, they finally get to The Scene. By this point, Monty and Harper have sent her enough sly glances to last a lifetime, and she's ready to be done with the whole thing.

Towards the end of the movie their characters have been reunited only to be forced apart again. The frustration and emotions are at an all-time high, which means it's time for an intense and angry make-out scene between Clarke and Bellamy's characters.

The whole experience feels unreal, especially after they've been simultaneously tiptoeing around each other and slowly but surely gravitating towards one another for months.

For those two minutes, he's not Bellamy Blake, and she's not Clarke Griffin. But that one moment, after her character comes barging into his character's confined room, after they scream at each other until their throats hurt and their anger turns to something much more dangerous, after his mouth descends on hers, rough and demanding, after her back is shoved into the wall and her wrists held tight, after she breaks free from his grasp and pulls him closer instead of pushing him away – for that one moment, his eyes wide and his expression stripped bare, she sees Bellamy Blake.

And she never wants to look away.

They film the scene in one take. Everyone on set needs a cold shower after it.

It takes Bellamy a second to realize that Wallace has shouted _cut_ , and it takes him another one to let go of her waist as if he's been burned, his expression suddenly more guarded than usual, his heaving chest the only remain of what happened only moments ago. Another second passes, and then he's gone.

Clarke closes her eyes in an attempt to get her heart rate under control. Thankfully she's still leaning against the wall, because her whole body seems to be shaking and her legs can't be trusted.

Murphy walks by her wordlessly on his way out, his eyebrows raised high, and lets out a low whistle.

Clarke fights the urge to respond with a humorless laugh. _Yeah, buddy. Me too._

When she feels like she could walk again, she wants to find Bellamy, to make sure that everything is all right, that _they_ are all right. But it's well past midnight and he's probably already in his trailer. And she knows _that_ would be the mother of bad ideas.

As she approaches her trailer, she realizes she won't have to do any of the searching. Bellamy's found her.

A dark silhuouette sitting at the steps with his head in his hands, he rises the moment he hears her footsteps approaching.

She stops in front him and looks up, noting the insecurity in his eyes.

'Clarke, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have walked out like that. I just-' he trails off, looks down and bites his lip like he's not sure what to say.

'I know.'

His eyes lock with hers again, and she sees as much as feels relief setting in and finally letting her breathe.

He nods, then moves out of her way. 'Right then. I'll see you tomorrow.'

Clarke smiles to herself and pushes the trailer door open.

'Good night, Bellamy.'

It immediatelly becomes another thing in the ever-growing list of things that they just don't mention. Ever. The morning after, their interaction is a bit rocky, in that way when you are painfully aware of your every action. However, by the time the rest of the group arrives to breakfast, it's like nothing even happened. Monty watches them in suspicion for a while, but even he forgets all about it when Clarke challenges him to a toast stacking competition. It's something of a tradition.

The two of them don't talk about it, and if others do, they are mindful enough not to let her hear it. Little does she know, their scene has already turned into a legend among crew members who were on set at the time.

They film the rest of the scenes, pack up their stuff, and before they know it, it's time for the wrap party. It's definitely classier than the previous one, but apart from that nothing's really changed. She drinks more than she should, and spends half an hour arguing with Bellamy whether Anne Hathaway should have ended up with that Andrew guy or Chris Pine in the _Princess Diaries 2_. It's nice.

Sometime around midnight she's finishing her drink at the bar, contemplating whether it's too late to call her best friend, who happens to be a teacher with early classes tomorrow morning. But she'll see him tomorrow anyway, so she should probably be a good friend and let him sleep. 

She tips the bartender and stars gathering her stuff when Murphy takes the seat next to her. And he must be really drunk, because the first words out of his mouth are the beginning of the world's corniest pick-up line. 

'Did it hurt?'

Clarke narrows her eyes, turning to him with what she likes to think of as her death glare. 'When I fell from heaven? _Seriously_ , Murphy?'

He smirks, like he was expecting that exact reaction. 'No.'

Clarke pushes her phone into her purse and throws it over her shoulder, completely ready to leave this bar. 'What then?'

'When you fell for Bellamy.'

Her mouth falls open, outraged denial on the tip of her tongue, but he only raises his glass in good-bye and saunters off.

Okay, it's obviously high time she left this bar if the Universe has sent John Murphy to drunkenly call her out on her stupid _crush_.

Which - yeah, exists. It's fair to say the cat is out of the bag now, so she may as well admit it to herself. Luckily for her, Bellamy Blake is a giant nerd with absolutely no game whatsoever, so she's in the clear. She has time to think this through.

Ding dong, she was _wrong_.

Two weeks after they're back home, she gets a call. She doesn't think much of it, because she assumes their producer has had both her and Bellamy on speed dial for the last year, and setting up a metting at her office is far from alarming.

Tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp, Clarke walks into Anya's ridiculously large office, high in the _Mount Weater Studios_ building. She's only midly surprised to find Bellamy sitting in one of the armchairs in front of Anya's mahogany desk.

Worldlessly, she takes a seat next to him and together they watch Anya finish her phone call. Seemingly calm and collected as ever, she takes a deep breath before leaning against the edge of her desk and finally turning to them.

'We have a problem.'

Now, at this point Clarke would have probably started worrying if she hadn't been summoned to Anya's office under the same pretense a million times before.  Anya's problems range from _mild traffic_ to _a dead body on one of the filming locations,_ and she handles them all with the same vaguely indifferent expression.

'You are aware that Cage Wallace has had some issues with the law.' It's a statement, not a question.

Clarke meets Bellamy's eyes, and they mirror her exact thought. _Where the hell is she going with this?_

Anya leans back into her massive leather chair and folds her hands under her chin, continuing as if they are talking about the cloudless sky behind her. 'It has come to our attention that Mr. Wallace is under investigation and about to get arrested.'

Clarke's mouth falls open in shock, her mind spinning with possibilities. Bellamy recovers before her and asks the million-dollar question.

'What for?'

'Fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion, drug possesion. Among other things.'

' _Jesus_.' ' _Wow_.'

Anya taps her fingers along her desk, suddenly impatient. 'Yes, our sentiments exactly.'

Clarke narrows her eyes, starting to feel like Anya is a predator preying on the two of them, preparing to make the final jump. 'Why are you telling us this?'

Bellamy immediately realizes what she's aiming at and backs her up. 'This has nothing to do with us, filming for the next one doesn't start for months.'

For the first time since Clarke has known her, Anya looks _uncomfortable_.

This, more than anything, causes cold dread to wash over Clarke. Whatever Anya is leading up to has _a fucking disaster_ written all over it.

Anya's words only build on that sense of imminent trouble. She stands up abruptly and goes to her wall-to-ceiling window overlooking the city. 'We need a distraction. Something to keep everyone occupied until Wallace's mess goes away and the studio brings a new director on board as silently as possible.'

Clarke sits up, 'I don't understand-'

'We need you guys to start dating.'

Looks like  _a fucking disaster_ was too optimistic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a disclaimer, Murphy's 'did it hurt' comment is something I saw on tumblr months and months ago, and I can't, for the life of me, remember in what context. If someone happens to know where it originated from, I'd be happy to properly give credit.  
> Also, I find it hilarious that it's taken me 7 chapters and 20k+ words to finally come to The Fake Dating, which was originally the premise for this fic. I hope it was worth the wait!


	8. Press Tour pt. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After last chapter, I wanted to update as soon as possible - think of it as my treat for you guys, because you're seriously amazing.  
> Thank you for your continuous support and lovely comments xx

It is universally acknowledged that there are few things press loves more than horrid love triangles, pregnancy rumours and disgraceful divorces. One of them is definitely a budding romance between two main leads in a high-budget Hollywood production. Real or not – who cares? Words can be twisted, photographs wrongly interpreted. Common folk loves to believe that their favorite on-screen couples are shacking up in real life too, like it somehow adds to the whole movie experience.

When this couple is comprised of two very attractive media sensations with legions of overly-obsessed teenagers ready for a fight to death in the name of their favorite celebrity's honor, everyone is waiting at the edge of their seat, holding their breath for the official announcement – are they or are they not? And the press is profiting from it, money rolling in everytime there's a candid photo of the pair at one airport or another.

Bonus points if they are touching.

-

It's quiet in the car, but she knows it's just the lull before the storm. She sneaks a glance at Bellamy and finds him lost in his thoughts. He looks fantastic, though, all messy curls, wide shoulders, and a tailored suit that almost made her cry when she first saw him an hour earlier.

She tears her eyes away from him and tries to catch a glimpse of the outside world through the tinted windows. She shouldn't be looking forward to venturing into it, but the heavy cloud of nervous anticipation glooming over them feels so much worse.

The car pulls up, and the commotion outside, while still subdued, crowds them in. Bellamy finally breaks out of his thoughts and the intensity of his gaze hits her like a truck. His expression is stoic, but his eyes - his eyes are two moons in the darkness of the backseat, and they are impossible to read.

'Ready?'

It's not her proudest moment, but she snorts with humorless laughter. Luckily, he understands, the corners of his lips twitching into a smile when he realizes what he's asking, amusement fading into resignation. 'Yeah.'

She grabs her glittery clutch bag and motions towards the door. 'Let's just get this over with.'

He nods, and there's a moment of pause before the door springs open and hell is unleashed. Noise surges towards them - crowd cheering, reporters shouting, cameras clicking - and then it's like someone hit flash-forward.

Clarke takes Bellamy's hand, lets him pull her out of the limo.

It's hunting season, and the prey has arrived.

The noise grows exponentially as she tries not to sway on her high heels. Bellamy's hand on her waist steadies her against the overwhelming chaos of light and sound, coming from everywhere and all at once. Her name shouted from so many directions always makes her dizzy, even if she's learned by now to keep her chin raised high and ignore it all.

She's vaguely aware of a nearby female voice, shrieking in disbelief, _'Carl, are you filming this shit?_ '

She's momentarily blinded by what seems like thousands camera flashlights, and tightens her grip on Bellamy's arm. He stiffens for a short moment, surprised, his head snapping in her direction, but he quickly recovers and steps onto the red carpet.

She takes one last deep breath and forces an easy smile.

Ready or not, here we come.

-

After the fateful meeting with their producer, they agree on dispensing the truth on a strict need-to-know basis.

She calls her mother and explains the situation, trying her best not to wince at the ridiculous words coming out of her own mouth. Fake dating is supposed to be an overused trope, not a real life thing.

Her mother only asks her if she's sure she wants to do this. Clarke tells her yes, even though her mind is supplying her with a clear picture of a flashing neon sign that spells 'ABORT'.

Next, she calls Kyle. He laughs for a full minute, then asks, worry creeping into his voice, if she's joking.

She tells him no.

He tells her she's gone insane. She opens her mouth to argue, then changes her mind. 'Probably, yes.'

When they end the call thirty minutes later, she immediatelly opens _Messages_ and sends him a text, not exactly sure who she is trying to convince more - him or herself.

**______________________________**

**Kyle Wick**

this isn't that asshole Robin Thicke's song, and no lines are going to get blurred

 

Clarke, I love you, but at this point you couldn't see the line with the Hubble telescope.

**______________________________**

After she's asked to distract the public and media by pretending to date her co-star, Clarke feels dirty, like she's suddenly an accomplice in Wallace's disguisting crimes. But she has to agree with the producers' logic - the movie they made is awesome, and the cast and crew shouldn't suffer because the director is a dickhead.

So she goes along with it.

Their social schedule is dictated by Wallace's dealing with the justice system, and those are words she never thought she would have to put in a sentence like that. Their first official public appearance as a _couple_ is at the _Mt Weather Studios'_ annual benefit the day before Wallace is finally arrested.

They arrive together, they leave together, and they only do one interview at the red carpet. The hysteria that follows is unprecedented. Whichever social media app she opens, she's assaulted by a slew of videos and gifs, most of them portraying one crucial moment.

The starry-eyed reporter shoves the microphone into Bellamy's face and demands, 'What does this _mean_?'

Bellamy smirks, that one twitch of his mouth that has the power to send the whole planet into frenzy, and gazes down at Clarke. Without moving his eyes from her, he says only one word.

' _Everything_.'

Clarke hates how she can see genuine surprise in her own eyes, and how a case could also be made for something stronger than respectful friendship.

She hates that, right after that interview, Bellamy led them into the building and squeezed her hand, his voice only for her to hear. 'Good?'

His eyes were full of softness and concern and uncertainty, making her selfish self realize that he's struggling with this mess too. She squeezed his hand back, ' _Good_.'

It doesn't help that she overheard a conversation between two  _Mt Weather_ 's PR guys shortly after that moment, complaining how they 'couldn't script that shit even if they tried.'

What is everyone talking about, seriously?

She releases some of the pent-up pressure in gym with Lincoln the next day. Kyle is there too, mostly just to laugh at her life.

He settles down on the floor by the wall and busies himself with grading assignments, every once in a while piping up with a comment he's overheard from his students. Lincoln holds the punching bag and doesn't say anything, but his eyes are crinkled in amusement every time Kyle mentions the word _Bellarke_ and Clarke punches the bag harder.

The fault is on her, really, for choosing those _little shits_ to be her friends.

-

If Bellamy knew that one word could turn his world upside down, he would have broken out into song and moonwalked away from that damn interview. He can almost feel Indra smacking him on the head, saying 'When will you ever learn?'

Now, he thinks. He's definitely learned now.

The fallout of his and Clarke's first public appearance is like nothing he has ever experienced.

When he comes home that night, his phone won't stop blowing up, so he turns it off and tosses it in the general direction of his sofa. He hears a thump, but he couldn't care less. He climbs into bed and sleeps for ten hours straight.

He and Clarke may have drank more than they should have in order to get through the night, to the horror of the PR team who hovered around them like mother hens and to the delight of the world which got a five second clip of the two of them crying from laughter over tiny soaps in the restroom.

That's why he's woken up by his angry buzzing doorbell at 10am. He drags himself to the door and swings it open without thinking, only praying for the shrill sound to stop.

Indra marches inside without waiting for an invitation, and the first attack begins. 'I could have been a crazy fan out to murder you, or even worse, a paparazzo, and you'd just let me in?'

His nose scrunches up in confusion as he closes the door. 'How's that _worse_?'

She ignores him and goes straight to his kitchen table, starts pulling out contents of her paper bag.

' _Sit_.'

Knowing resistance is futile, he slumps down into the chair and eyes the green drink Indra has put in front of him suspiciously.

' _Drink up._ '

Even though he's pretty sure Octavia once tried to get him to drink a healthy smoothie like this and it was awful, he sighs in resignation and picks up the cup. The green liquid is cold and tastes only half-bad, so he manages to gulp down most of it.

Indra regards him with an unreadable expression, as usual, and then she gets straight to business, as usual.

She places a tablet on the table in front of him, with an article opened on it. He recognizes a picture from last night's interview, and doesn't need to read a word of the article. Everything has suddenly come back. In full HD.

He slides the tablet away and massages his temples. He doesn't know why he said what he said. He was supposed to _lie_ and _not lie_ at the same time, Clarke was pressed against his side, watching him with that smile, a smile that's full of life, a smile that shows everything, a smile that  _could be_ everything _._

'Are you in love with Clarke Griffin?'

Bellamy's gaze shoots up to find Indra's uncharacteristically soft expression. He doesn't know what answer she expects, or what plans will be made after it.

He ponders his words carefully. 'No.'

Relief seems to take over Indra's face, and it breaks Bellamy's heart to tell her the rest.

'But I could be.'

-

Thankfully, Bellamy suggests right from the start that they avoid outright lying. That means they spend a month going around red carpets and talk shows giving out vague statements about their relationship. Surprisingly, the media seems to love them even more for it. 

Ellen DeGeneres displays a huge picture of Clarke and Bellamy posing at the red carpet when Clarke comes on the show, and mentions fake-casually, 'He seems nice.'

Clarke can't help but smile. 'He's alright.'

Everyone thinks she's being funny. The picture behind her could very easily be interpreted as that of two people in love.

Good thing there are _some people_ left who know how deceitful pictures can be, right?

It's the same as when he's on Jimmy Fallon and tells the awing audience, 'I've never met anyone who'd argue about Han Solo with the same amount of passion as her,' and everyone mistakes him thinking she's a weirdo as him planning their wedding.

After that she gets so many tweets in which _arguing about Han Solo_ is clearly turned into an innuendo. She stays off twitter for the rest of the day.

A month into this madness, they're in New York for a charity event. She finds herself snapping at Lincoln without a reason and notices the same strain on Bellamy's shoulders. In short, they are overwhelmed.

She gets an idea. It's probably one of her worse ones, but at this point her life is such a mess that one more bad decision doesn't seem like a big deal.

Clarke calls her mother and asks if she can bring Bellamy to Hamptons tomorrow.

'Sure, honey, whatever you need,' her mother's response leaves her smiling, and reminds her that Abigail Griffin will always have her back, no matter what.

She opens _Messages_ and taps on Prima Donna Blake. She should really get round to changing that one of these days.

______________________________

**Prima Donna Blake**

we need a break

i'm picking you up at 9am, and bring swimming shorts

 ???

Are you planning to drown me?

 no

but my mother might

Nice try, Abby and I are practically best friends

 that's why you'd never expect it

 Fuck

______________________________

Abby and Marcus greet them at the marina with bright smiles. Clarke hugs both of them, and jumps on board of their yacht, turns around just in time to see Bellamy kissing Abby's cheek and getting enveloped in a hug by Marcus.

This should feel weird, but somehow, after everything, it doesn't.

She takes off her flip-flops and relishes the feeling of hardwood flooring under her bare feet. Warm sun on her skin and salty breeze playing with the ends of her hair bring her back to the carefree summers when everything was simple and easy.

And now she's pretending to date a man she's probably halfway in love with, and she thought bringing him to spend a day with her mother and Marcus was a good idea.

Karma will have her head sooner or later, for sure.

They drop anchor in a secluded harbor, and Abby and Marcus disappear inside to prepare dinner, firmly refusing offered help.

Bellamy and Clarke agree to go for a swim. On their way to the back of the yacht, she offers him a life jacket and he bumps her shoulder in response. Once on the swim platform, she sees the inviting sea shimmering in the sunlight and wastes no time. She wiggles out of her denim shorts, refusing to think how she's basically undressing right in front of Bellamy. Again. Seriously, why does that just keep happening?

He pulls his shirt over his head in that stupid _male_ way that gets her every single time, and the sun hits the plane of his chest just right, lighting him up like a greek statue in a museum.

He licks his lips. She stares, transfixed. A moment passes, and then he's moving closer and his hands are on her waist and -

she's sent flying into the water.

Outraged, she surfaces to see Bellamy laughing his ass off. She climbs back onto the platform and immediately launches herself at Bellamy, clings to his back like an over-attached koala, trying to throw him off balance. Since he's basically a wall of solid muscle, the job turns out to be difficult. She tries to swing them both towards the water, but he only laughs at her feeble attempt. That's about when she realizes that there is sea water trickling down her body and she's straddling his lower back, her arms wrapped around his chest. Her hands glide over his skin, warmed by the sweltering noon heat, and feeling wonderfully hot against her cooled body.

They both still, and she's suddenly mesmerized by the way his throat works as he swallows hard. His words are careful and his tone painfully casual. 'What now?'

She considers her options. She could think rationally and do what's best, disengage herself from his back and leave it at that. _Or_ , she could play with fire and see this battle through.

When you put it like that, it's a no-brainer. At least for Clarke.

She slips her hand under his arm and over his chest. Then slides it _down_.

His whole body goes rigid for a millisecond, and then he loses ballance and slips. They topple over into the water, disjoining from the impact. They come up to the surface within a meter of each other, and he shakes off water from his hair before raising an eyebrow at her. His tone is disappointed but his eyes are twinkling with amusement, 'That was a low blow.'

She licks her lips and fights off a grin. It was nowhere near _low_ enough for her.

Still, he's giving her an out, turning it into a joke and falling back to their friendly antagonism. For the sake of everyone involved in this mess, she lets him, even though there's no denying her feelings. She dipped a toe over the line, and it felt _good_.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

They have dinner out on the deck. There is salt in her tangled curls and a permanent grin on her face, and she can't remember the last time she felt this peaceful. The food is excellent, the company is even better. Her mother and Marcus are in the middle of their vacation, so they're already in high spirits as it is. Bellamy's sporting a grin like her, genuine and larger than life. Against the background of the sunset's reds and oranges, his shoulders are relaxed and his eyes glisten when he meets her gaze. It's like the Universe is pointing a giant arrow at him and chanting 'HIM, HIM, HIM'. Like she hasn't figured it on her own.

When it's time for Clarke and Bellamy to leave, Marcus stops her with a hand on her shoulder, his voice quiet and his eyes far too perceptive. 'I hope you know what you're doing, Clarke. I'd hate to see either of you get hurt.'

She doesn't know what to say, so she bites down on her lip and manages a nod before following after Bellamy. She definitely doesn't know what she's doing, and at this point her getting hurt is a given, isn't it?

Once in the car, Clarke digs up her phone for the first time since early morning. There are thousands of things that require her attention, but she can't bring herself to care about any of them at the moment. Not when Bellamy's right beside her, looking out of the window with a slight smile playing on his lips. She itches to reach for his chin and kiss him. Instead, she goes back to her phone and opens a text from Anya.

_Good job today, we all owe you for this.  
_

There's a screenshot of an online article, filled with pictures of their yacht leaving the marina earlier today, her and Bellamy standing way too close to each other and grinning from ear to ear.

Ah, yes.

They are supposed to be pretend-dating. Anya told them a week ago that today was the start of Wallace's trial.

There's just one problem.

This afternoon, sometime between unsuccessfully trying to submerge Bellamy and laughing with everyone over dinner, she _forgot_.

-

The night that everything changes is the night of the long-awaited world premiere of the second _Ark_ installment.

Someone at _Mt Weather_ _Studios_ must have screamed _all or nothing_ on this one, because the event is like nothing Clarke has ever seen. The entire space has been decorated with miniscule models of the Ark, and the walls are covered in huge black-and-white prints depicting scenes from the movie. The red carpet is not red, but silver metal, and thousands of small led lights in the background are reminiscent of the movie's Space setting.

It's breathtaking.

Her dress is long, hugs her curves like a second skin and expands into a long trail at her feet. Its full length is covered entirely in tiny silver sequins, to go with the theme, and the back – well, there is no back at all.

Bellamy takes one look at her when she arrives at the hotel, and approaches her as she marvels at the artificial stars above her.

'You know they have nothing on you, right?' His mouth is so close to her ear that she can feel his breath on her skin, goosebumps spreading down her body.

Before she can think about it, she reaches for his upper arm and presses her lips against his cheek, overwhelmed by a surge of emotions. When she pulls away, his expression is somewhere between shock and joy, and she knows hers is an exact mirror.

He opens his mouth as if he's about to say something, but then a stern woman resembling a drill-sergeant more than an event manager comes through the door, leading the rest of the cast members.

They are whisked away by their friends, some of whom they haven't seen almost since the filming finished. Harper is sporting a tan from her casual _stroll_ around the Peruvian jungle. Clarke's seriously intimidated by her fearlessness.

Murphy comes in with a white poodle named Janice on a leash. It's bizarre, and he offers no explanation. No one questions it.

And then Monty comes in with _Nathan Miller_ as his date and acts like it's no big deal. Clarke almost shrieks when she sees them arrive, startling poor Bellamy who's just took a sip of his champagne.

' _What?_ ' he asks in the middle of coughing his lungs out, and she pats him on the back without taking her eyes off the happy couple.

'Monty is with Nathan Miller? On like a _date_?'

He finally catches his breath, then glares at her. 'I could have told you that, there was no need for me to _almost die_.'

She chuckles. 'Always the drama queen, aren't we?'

'Says the girl who almost fainted when she saw her friend with his boyfriend.'

She looks at him fondly and grabs his arm, thinking it's funny how a year ago they were at each other's throats about every little thing and now she finds him cute when he tries to argue.

'Let's go say hi.'

-

Considering this is the premiere of their film, and they are two main leads, this time they have to do the whole red carpet thing without shortcuts.

Who would have guessed this would be the cathartic beginning to something new?

They start off fairly easy. Questions about character development and plot lines, normal stuff they could do in their sleep. Questions about their personal life are tentative and mostly respectful. Like so many things between her and Bellamy, it turns into a competition, a segment she likes to call _Who can be more vague about the nature of Bellarke's relationship?_

There are genuine tears in her eyes when he tells a puzzled reporter that she's his favorite _comrade-in-arms_. She's trying so hard to hold in her laughter that she's shaking, and he has to drag her away before they offend the reporter even more.

They stop in front of the next reporter, still snickering, and then things take a turn.

The woman introduces herself and asks couple of mandatory harmless questions about the movie, just to get it over with. When she interrupts Bellamy in the middle of his frankly awe-inspiring answer about the value of the human race, Clarke senses trouble. And she's not wrong.

The reporter rattles off her question. 'Does it bother you that there are nudes of your girlfriend circulating the internet as we speak?'

Bellamy closes his mouth, then opens it again, his frown deepening with each second. Clarke reaches for his underarm, prepared to step in and give that woman a piece of her mind, but he stops her by taking her hand and squeezing hard.

'Are you kidding me with that question?' His tone may appear more incredulous than anything else, but Clarke knows Bellamy, and she knows that his rigid posture and his dangerously leveled voice scream trouble.

'I'm just stating the facts. Half the world has seen her naked - that's a fact. And when you consider the extensive list of people she dated so far, including two of her three co-stars in that Disney show, don't you feel threatened by all that?'

'No, I don't. I would, however, be threatened by her karate skills if I were you.'

The woman arches an eyebrow. 'Are you seriously threatening me right now?'

Bellamy shrugs, and rests his hand on Clarke's hip. 'Just stating the facts.'

He starts pulling her back to the carpet, but Clarke is not done here. She looks the reporter straight in the eye. 'If you ever feel the need to attack my boyfriend like that again, call me up and we'll schedule a sparring match. Oh, and I dated _all three_ of them.'

She slides her arm around Bellamy's waist and leads them away to the side, not ready to go straight to the next interview. She can tell Bellamy's still rattled, and she's not in a better shape herself.

'Bellamy, I'm sorry-'

He finally meets her eyes, his jaw clenched. 'You have nothing to be sorry about.'

They don't have time to catch a breath, let alone breathe, because one of the coordinators brings a new camera crew to them, and there is a new set of microphones shoved into their faces. Clarke tries to get them out of there, because there's no way her hot head, Bellamy's clearly agitated state, and nosy reporters will mix well, but the questions start before she can.

This time the reporter goes straight in.

'Is it true that your characters' love story highly resembels your own?'

Bellamy gives him a humorless laugh, his body brimming with restlessness. 'Trust me, it doesn't.'

Clarke freezes, Bellamy's sudden bluntness triggering an alarm in her head. Truth is _not_ what's going to set them free from this ever-growing disaster of a red carpet.

Bellamy seems to disagree. So when the reporter asks, 'When did you know you're in love with her?' Bellamy snaps.

'You want to know when I fell in love with her?'

The reporter seems taken aback, hesitating before nodding enthusiastically.

Bellamy looks at her, his eyes gradually clearing until all that anger has dissolved and turned into something like resignation. She's no longer afraid of what he'll say. She shouldn't have ever been, because this is a man she can trust. She realizes that now.

Bellamy smiles, his eyes trained on her, and it's a curl of his lips that does nowhere near enough to prepare her for the monumental words which follow.

'She took me boating.'

Clarke blinks, the gravity of his words settling in and spreading a new kind of warmth inside her chest. This must mean what she thinks it means, right?

Having expected something far more juicier, disappointment is written all over the reporter's face, but he thanks them for the interview nevertheless. Bellamy nods at him and takes Clarke's hand, pulls her with him as he ignores any other media representatives and leads them straight to the safety of the theatre.

Once inside, her brain finally catches up with the rest of her body and she stops in her tracks.

She thinks back to that infamous reporter's question which started everything, and wants to scream it at Bellamy.  _What does this mean?_

_What does this mean?_

Instead, she says, 'I'm shit at karate.'

The corners of his mouth twitch. 'I know.'

-

They watch their movie for the first time sitting side by side. She usually always keeps an eye on the audience's reactions to her performance, but this time - this time she's only aware of Bellamy's underarm pressed against hers on the armrest for the entire two hours, both of them holding their breaths as their characters engage in a, objectively speaking, seriously hot kiss. After that, it's only a couple of more scenes hinting at the next installment.

Credits roll, and she lets out a breath. She made it. This wasn't that bad.

And then the bloopers start.

She didn't know they were going to put them in. Judging by Bellamy's slight lean forward, he didn't know either.

First clip is Bellamy and Harper using baguettes as swords and engaging in a duel in the middle of the set. The audience bursts out laughing when Bellamy breaks off into a run and Harper chases after him, shouting dead-searious, ' _I will have your head, Blake!_ '

The next one Clarke recognizes all too well. The camera zooms in on a opening in the wall high from the ground, various limbs sticking out.

Monty's voice echoes, ' _We're stuck in this stupid vent, aren't we?_ '

' _Murphy, move your arm one more time and I'll break your fingers!_ '

Monty again. ' _Those are my fingers, Clarke._ '

Murphy's unconcerned voice pipes up, ' _Hey guys, wanna know how you defeat your enemies?_ '

Silence.

' _You chop off their feet!_ '

Silence.

' _I swear to God, if someone doesn't get us out of here right now there will be no one to get out!_ '

The whole theater erupts into laughter, and Clarke can't help but join in. They were stuck in that vent for three hours. It's a memory she'll treasure forever.

The audience finally quiets down and a new clip starts.

For a second there, her mind doesn't seem to quite grasp what she's looking at.

It's her and Bellamy, slumped on the floor of the set. Their backs leaning against the wall, her head is nestled on Bellamy's shoulder and he's gazing down at her, gentle and soft and so inherently _Bellamy_ that her chest feels too tight.

' _Let her sleep, it's been a long day,'_ he says to someone off-camera.

' _I will_ _fight you for the milk, Barbara,'_ she mumbles nonsensically in her sleep, and Bellamy grins.

He tucks a strand of her hair away from her face and looks at her with unmistakable fondness in his eyes.

' _I know you will.'_

The screen cuts to black. Clarke doesn't notice the murmur in the crowd, doesn't register Bellamy's concerned gaze.

 _What does this mean_ , her mind asks. And finally, she has the answer ready.

It means _everything_.

-

He lets himself into his house and takes off his suit jacket. She's following right behind him, not allowing any space to slip between them. He doesn't know if he's grateful or pissed.

He drops his keys at the kitchen counter and looks up to find her standing in the middle of the room, a vision in her sparkling dress even in the dim lighting.

He's completely clueless of how this is going to go. All he knows is that he met her gaze as deafening applause tore through the theatre, and something was changed. Something charged the air between them with this new terrifying yet exhilarating awareness.

He doesn't know what is going to happen and his fair share of life tragedy and heartbreak don't let him hope for what he wants. Still, this suspense is going to give him a premature heart attack, so he clears his throat as he throws his jacket over one of the chairs.

'You wanted to talk-'

A loud thump resonates around his kitchen after his phone slips out of the jacket's pocket and falls onto the floor.

'Yes, Bellamy, listen,' Clarke starts as he bends to pick it up and checks for potential smashed glass, prepared to put the phone away, when the screen comes to life and a sinking feeling weighs his stomach down.

Clarke's concerned voice, 'Is everything alright?'

He stares at his phone, cold dread rendering his body paralyzed.

Ten missed calls, and one text.

_Call me ASAP, it's about Octavia._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is the part about Hamptons and swimming even plausible? Who knows? I certainly don't, since I live by a secluded part of the Mediterranean Sea and I've never had to worry about sharks or God knows what other ocean dangers. My apologies if what I've written is unrealistic.
> 
> Writing this chapter was a weird experience. I've had some of the paragraphs already written, but then it took on a life of its own and grew into this 5k+ monster, quite different than what I've had in mind before I sat down to write. Also, as I was finishing the final paragraphs, it suddenly hit me that this story is wrapping up soon, and, well, that certainly feels weird. For what it's worth, I actually can't believe we've come this far. So, thanks again - without you I'm nothing ;)
> 
> I have to admit I'm pretty nervous about this chapter, which means I'm eagerly awaiting your thoughts!
> 
>  
> 
> 09/06/2017  
> Hey guys, I just wanted to say I've enjoyed reading all your wonderful comments, and I promise I haven't abandoned this fic. I know it's already been a long time, but unfortunately I won't be able to get the next chapter out until July. I felt compelled to add a note here for all those people who are coming across this fic for the first time and are likely disenhearted by the prehistoric date of the last update.   
> Thank you for your patience! I promise you'll get the ending you deserve :)


	9. Awards Season pt. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want everyone who took the time to comment on the previous chapter to know that your kind words helped me get through my finals.
> 
> This one is for you guys.

Clarke tugs Bellamy's suit jacket closer to her chest. Glances at the clock.

Twenty more minutes.

She sneaks a look at Bellamy. He hasn't spoken ever since they took seats in the small waiting room, not even when one of Indra's security guys came in to give an update.

The clock above the door makes it a point to mark every excruciating second with an absurdly loud _tick_.

Bellamy taps his fingers against his thigh, his gaze trained on the opposite wall. 

_Tick_.

He digs his nails into his leg, fancy material of his pants creasing.

Clarke reaches for his hand and squeezes, hard.

His head turns her way, his eyes surprised and grateful and scared.

She'd give everything to see them crinkled in a smile again.

'It will be alright,' she says, and knows he wants to believe her but can't risk to. His throat works as he swallows hard.

'I will _make_ it alright,' she rephrases, and he almost smiles.

_Tick_.

His gaze is back on the wall. 

She checks the clock.

Nineteen more minutes.

-

Clarke drives on auto-pilot, her eyes drawn to Bellamy's figure in the seat next to her. His body is brimming with restlessness, his knee jumping up and down in a nervous tick, his fingers tapping against the arm rest. His eyes never once stray from the dark road in front of them, even though his thoughts are clearly nowhere near.

In her mind, she keeps replaying their phone conversation with Indra that ended just minutes ago.

' _From what I've pieced together, some Harvard prep asshole wouldn't take no for an answer so she punched him in front of all his friends, his rich asshole parents decided to sue and then someone realized she's your sister and let TMZ in on the whole thing. It's a nightmare out there._ '

' _It seems that she booked a flight to LA and is on her way right now. I'm stuck at JFK because these jokers are yet to do their job and find me a plane, but I'll start threatening if I have to. I'll be there as soon as I can. Stay put Bellamy, we're dealing with this._ '

Clarke watched Bellamy tense up as desperation overcame both fear and anger, and stood still as he ended the call and grabbed his car keys. Their eyes met for a brief moment, and it was enough.

She extended her arm. 'I'll drive.'

She's in the middle of praying to the traffic light gods at an intersection when the piercing ringing sound startles them both.

When Bellamy doesn't react in any way, Clarke checks caller ID before searching for the answer button and pressing it just in time.

' _What do you need?_ ' Marcus' concerned yet determined voice fills the car.

Bellamy's leg stills. 'I have to get to her.'

A short pause. ' _Is Clarke with you?_ '

'I'm here,' she answers.

Marcus' voice leaves no room for discussion. ' _There'll be an army of paparazzi waiting for her and nothing good will happen if they see him. Or the other way around. Do you understand me?'_

Clarke sneaks a glance at Bellamy, who's seemingly lost in his thoughts again, and bites down on her lip.

'Yes.'

She ends the call after promising updates, and the phone rings again. She looks at Bellamy, and he nods in confirmation.

The ringtone is replaced by a menacing female voice. ' _Say the word and I'll be on my way to cut a bitch_.'

Despite everything, Bellamy chuckles. 'Thanks, Raven, but I'm not sure that would help anyone.'

' _I for one would feel better If I knew that asshole was bleeding._ _But I can also be home in under six hours if you need me_.'

'I don't know, Raven,' Bellamy rubs his eyes, 'I have no idea what's gonna happen, I just have to see her.'

' _Okay babe, give her a hug for me and call me when you get home. Want me to call Nate?_ '

'Please.'

' _I'll tell him you'll call later. We're here whatever you need, you know that._ '

The moment the call ends Bellamy groans, fingers digging into his temple.

'Please, no more calls.'

Clarke has to agree, having longed for a moment of silence ever since the car turned into a freaking telephone central.

And then her mind lights up with an idea.

'Just one more,' she promises him, reaching for his phone and dialing a number before he can protest.

The answer comes after only two beeps. ' _Hello?_ '

'Lincoln, I need your help.'

-

The door bursts open, and finally hearing that familiar voice sets off relief he can feel down to his bones.

'If you don't let me go right this second, I'll-'

'Punch him in the face?' Bellamy supplies, unable to help himself.

Octavia immediately stops struggling and looks at her brother in astonishment.

' _Bell?_ '

Lincoln finally manages to drag her the rest of the way inside and close the door behind them.

Within seconds her shock wears off and she's already in Bellamy's arms, her hands clinging to his shirt.

'I'm so sorry, I tried to fix it, and when I couldn't I just had to get out of there. I'm sorry, Bell, I messed up,' she utters into his shirt.

He holds her close, his eyes shutting in relief when the realization that she's safe and finally in his arms sinks in.

'It's okay, O. I'm just relieved you're alright.'

Her arms still firmly around him, she lifts her head from his chest to glance at Lincoln. 'And I'm sorry I fought you. But you have to admit it was sketchy that you didn't have any credentials.'

Lincoln's leveled voice carries a hint of amusement. 'We were in the middle of running from paparazzi, there was no time to retrieve identification documents even if I had them.'

Clarke pipes up from behind them, 'Also, I made him come after his shift, so, not his fault.'

Octavia releases her death grip on Bellamy, noticing Clarke for the first time since she's entered the room. She gives Bellamy a look he can't read, and then regards Clarke with a strange mix of surprise, suspicion, and curiosity.

Suddenly tense again, Bellamy observes their interaction holding his breath.

Clarke extends her arm, expression warm and inviting. 'I'm Clarke. Glad to see you're okay.'

His sister hesitates for only a second before shaking the offered hand. 'Octavia.'

And that's when one of Indra's guys peers into the room. 'Mr. Blake, my orders are to drive you and your sister home.'

Octavia gives Bellamy a pleading look. 'She's already going to kill me, please don't make her any angrier.'

'I wasn't going to argue,' he chuckles. 'LA traffic sucks. Now come on, let's get out of this place.'

Minutes later, he stands outside the airport, darkness of the night a stark contrast to the fluorescent lights he's been subjected to for the last hour. He watches Octavia climb into the car, Lincoln holding her door open and ducking his head to hide his smile at something she said.

Clarke appears at Bellamy's side, her hand lingering on his upper arm for a short moment. 

'I'll grab a ride with Lincoln. Your sister needs you.'

Before he can say anything, she raises herself on tiptoes and presses her lips against his cheek. 'Call me tomorrow, okay?'

He nods before watching her disappear into another nearby car, his suit jacket hanging off her small frame.

He smiles to himself and joins his sister in the car.

They stay quiet for the first part of the ride, her head a comforting weight on his shoulder. Bellamy recognizes her need to recuperate in silence. She'll talk when she's ready, and he's grateful to just sit by her side, knowing that she's okay.

As they reach a nondescript intersection, she finally breaks the silence.

'I'm really sorry, Bell.'

'None of this is your fault,' he assures her. 'I wish you'd come to me the moment it happened, but I'm afraid the outcome wouldn't be any different.'

She lifts her head from his shoulder and looks out of the window, her tone bitter.  
  
'They will drag you through the mud because of me.'

He reaches for her hand. 'I don't care, O.'

'Well I do! You always took care of everything and my only job was not to fuck it up. What a terrible sister I am, honestly.

'O, stop it. We'll deal with this. You know Indra will bury that asshole, and everyone else will forget this even happened in like a week. This city is a drama factory, trust me.'

She runs her hand through her hair in frustration. 'I just wanted to deal with something on my own, for once in my life.'

'Seriously?' He asks, incredulous. 'O, you're graduating from Harvard in a couple of months. You did all that by yourself. I didn't do that for you. Indra definitely didn't do that for you.'

She bites her lip, and he knows he has her, so he continues. 'So you focus on becoming a kick-ass lawyer, and let us deal with a fuckboy's family.'

She sighs. 'I hate it when you make rational arguments like that. But I'm still a terrible sister,' she says, visibly frustrated with herself. 'I haven't even found time to intimidate Clarke.'

Bellamy almost chokes on air. 'Why would you- you sure that's necessary?' He tries to play the part of a teenage dependent's guardian, complete with the slightly arched eyebrow and a hint of rebuke in his voice, but it doesn't quite work. Her narrowed eyes and a slight tilt of the head portray the classic _I'm not playing around, Bellamy_ expression.

Resigned to his fate, he sighs. ' _Fine_. You can do it tomorrow.'

She grins widely, her first real smile today, and he realizes he's breathing a little easier. O's still here. Under the forty layers of exhaustion, tense shoulders and bitten nails, she's still fighting.

His chest fills with pride.

Unable to help himself, he reaches out to mess her hair, like he did so many times when they were two scrawny kids with scars on their knees.

She lets him, just this once.

-

She drops her bag on the floor and takes a moment to drink in her surroundings. She's been to his place a couple of times in the beginning, but after paparazzi started following his every move they limited their secret meetings to New York.

Her gaze sweeps over his homey choice of furniture and all the endearing details that make her brother the nerd that he is.

This is Bellamy's home, and she has an apartment in Cambridge, where she sleeps and eats and lives - but still, she can't escape the vague sense of coming home that came over her the moment she stepped inside. She suspects it has more to do with her brother than the house.

Bellamy disappears into the kitchen, his voice raising as he continues to entertain her with the latest installment of his longstanding feud with his crazy director neighbour. The words mostly wash over her because she's busy thanking the twelve Olympian gods for the fact that she fucked up and her brother is calmly talking about neighbourhood disputes.

Right on cue, a crescendo of footsteps has her turning towards the staircase in anticipation.

Cato comes running down the stairs and launches himself in her direction, elated to see his second favorite person.

(Sometimes first, actually, but she doesn't want to break Bellamy's heart.)

She crouches to run her hand over Cato's soft fur. 'Hey, Kitty Octavia.'

'I wish you stopped calling him that, it's weird,' Bellamy's disapproving voice carries from the kitchen.

'No can do, brother,' she says loud enough for him to hear, then turns to the dog, her voice lowered. 'I hope you did your duty and annoyed the hell out of Bell while I was gone.'

'I heard that,' Bellamy's voice suddenly comes from right behind her.

She gives one final scratch to Cato's belly and stands up to face her brother, the exhaustion of this day from hell kicking in and making her sway on her feet.

He reaches out to steady her, his smile full of fondness and relief. 'I love you, you know that?'

She's tired and seeing her brother after months of separation always makes her annoyingly sentimental. That's her excuse for the traitor tears pooling in her eyes, anyway. ' _I_ love _you_ , you know that?'

He pulls her into a hug, his chin resting against the top of her head. 'Of course I do.'

She laughs, pressing her cheek against his chest, breathing in his familiar scent, tension releasing from her shoulders in waves.

'I missed you,' she speaks into his shirt.

'I missed you too,' he answers in a heartbeat.

'I was talking to the dog.'

'Shut up.'

______________________________

**The Devil Herself**

01:43

Thank you for today.

______________________________

After nine hours of surprisingly blissful sleep, Octavia comes downstairs to find Indra, Clarke Griffin, and Marcus Kane having a breakfast in Bellamy's kitchen.

While Bellamy remains hidden from the view by the opened refrigerator door, both Griffin and Kane regard her with interest while Indra sports her usual unreadable expression.

For a short moment, everything's at a standstill.

'So this is happening,' Octavia finally breaks the silence. When the house guests just continue staring at her, she raises her eyebrows. 'Well, I hope there's something stronger than orange juice.'

Bellamy finally emerges from the fridge, chuckling, and Indra quirks an unamused eyebrow. However, what stops Octavia in her tracks is the funny look portraying an alarming amount of real concern that she gets from two Hollywood royals.

'Okay, now I feel obliged to mention that I am _not_ a raging alcoholic. Honestly Bell, what did you tell these people about me?'

Her brother places a pot of fresh coffee on the counter. 'Only the stories which make me look good, don't worry. Now sit down and eat.'

It's safe to say that the following breakfast becomes a serious contender for the top 10 weirdest experiences of her life.

She's got somewhat used to Bellamy's Hollywood way of life, as well as acquainted with Raven and Nate, who definitely classify as international megastars or whatever. But this is just weird.

The star of Octavia's favorite childhood Disney movie spreads butter over toast in between ogling her brother, and then _Marcus fucking Kane_ passes her the milk.

She knew Bellamy did that movie with the famous actor, obviously, and that they have stayed in touch ever since, but what strikes her as odd is the apparent normality of him eating an apple in Bellamy's home at 9 am on a random Saturday.

Bellamy manages to play the welcoming host, flirt with previously mentioned Disney star, and hold a conversation with, once again,  _Marcus fucking Kane_ , all while constantly filling up Octavia's plate like the mother hen that he is.

In the meantime Indra drinks more coffee than any human should in a day, and is yet to lift her gaze from the phone in her hands.

To Octavia's surprise, Marcus Kane seems genuinely interested in getting to know her, posing questions about her studies and future work. She comes to the conclusion that he must care about her brother a great deal, and it warms her heart to realize his brother has a healthy parent figure in his life. 

As for Clarke Griffin, she seems nice. She's not actively trying to steal her brother's money or get her five seconds of fame by dating a movie star, which is always a plus.

However, after half an hour of weirdly pleasant conversation about anything other than the pressing issue at hand, Octavia feels like she'll snap if she doesn't address the elephant in the room. So she sets down her glass and clears her throat.

'Don't get me wrong, I don't mind this _very normal and not at all weird_ gathering, but are we really going to pretend that Bellamy Blake's sister hasn't been accused of assault? That's why everyone is here, right? I'm sure Indra has better things to do than watch us eat scrambled eggs.'

'O-' Bellamy starts.

'I do,' Indra confirms, her eyes never leaving her phone.

'Then hit me with it. What's the situation?'

Without further ado Indra finally sets her phone aside and pulls out a tablet and a stack of documents, ready to get all of them familiar with the game plan. If there was a zombie apocalypse, Indra is the one she'd want on her team. 

Half an hour later, Octavia has a considerably less pessimistic outlook on her situation. They've gone through detailed plans including carefully arranged appearances to get the public on her side, social media accounts managed by a professional, and a team of lawyers to make sure that asshole is the one ending up with criminal charges. Octavia's looking forward to working with them.

It does all sound incredibly manufactured, but this is Bellamy's world and she has to play by the matching set of rules. She's not the only one getting hurt here.

- 

Despite the unfortunate reason for their reunion, he enjoys having his sister around. The paparazzi are on their heels whenever they leave the house, and there's the steady stream of online hate. Octavia deals with all of it like a champ.

But other things are definitely more interesting.

Like when he, Octavia, and Clarke return to his place from a lunch with Marcus and Abby, during which Marcus got his sister to try peas after a long history of nothing but hatred for them.

Something finally dawns on Octavia, and she turns to him and Clarke in honest bewilderment just as they enter his house.

'Is _Marcus Kane_ trying to parent me?!'

Clarke lets out an amused chuckle. 'I'm not sure he can help it.'

'You do realize you've been hanging out with him for a week now? No need to be so dramatic about his name,' Bellamy comments, smiling as he places the groceries on the counter. 'But yeah, it's what he does, and it's best to let him do his thing. Resistance is futile, trust me.'

-

Octavia returns to Harvard after a week. The death threats and media coverage have calmed down significantly, but he knows there will be a circus again if the whole thing goes to court. Indra is confident it won't, though, claiming that she's minutes away from cracking the asshole and his family. They certainly got more than they bargained for, considering that who they thought was a anonymous girl with attitude turned out to be a sister of a world-famous movie star.

After she leaves, he flies out to Hawaii because he promised one of Marcus' director buddies that he'll play a small part in his new thriller. And the whole time he's got either his sister or Clarke on his mind.

He knows what sudden fame does to a person's social life, and how most of people you know start treating you differently. He's worried about Octavia, but really, what else is new? She's one of the toughest people he knows, and she'll be alright.

As for Clarke, she's been a lifesaver throughout the whole thing. When he thinks about it, she's had his back for the better part of the last two years. With each text they exchange his smile grows bigger and his fears slowly disappear. 

-

It ends, or rather begins, with Oscars. Turns out Octavia wasn't that off, poking fun at his dramatic ways for years.

Since the world is now acquainted with the hurricane that is Octavia, she's can for the first time be his plus-one for the ceremony. She has a list of things she wants to make fun of, starting with, as always, anything that Bellamy does.

'Is Lincoln coming with us?' she asks, all faux innocence, as she applies finishing touches of make-up in front of a giant mirror on Bellamy's closet.

'Sure,' Clarke answers without thinking, busy with putting in earrings next to her. Bellamy's not even sure how she ended up here, one minute Octavia was calling her to ask something about preferred clutch sizes and the next she was here, joining forces with his sister to bug the hell out of him.

' _Why?_ ' he asks, standing up from the edge of the bed, suspicion and slight warning in his voice.

Octavia rolls her eyes. 'Brother, I'm twenty-two. And have you _seen_ Lincoln? There's no way I'm passing on that.'

'I-'

Octavia steps up to him and covers his mouth with her hand. 'Your mandatory brotherly concern is duly noted. Now sort out that mess of a hair and let's go. We're gonna be late.'

She lets go of him and power-walks out of the room. Bellamy stands there, confused about what just happened, until Clarke comes up to him and fixes his bow tie, laughing at his dumbfounded expression.

'You did good with her.'

He meets Clarke's eyes, a hint of _why did I do this to myself_ in his voice. ' _Did I?_ '

She chuckles at his hesitance and pats his chest. 'Yes.'

-

_The Ark_ has, once again, taken the awards season by storm. No one was surprised when they went home with five Critics' Choice awards, or even when Murphy got a Golden Globe for his highly praised performance. Everywhere they went they were showered in awards, much to _Mt Weather Studio_ 's delight.

Once again, the Oscars are expected to be a cherry on top of a highly sucessful month. And they do not disappoint.

Octavia turns out to be the star of the red carpet, outshining both Hollywood veterans and flashy newcomers. She charms reporters with her jabs at Bellamy during his short interviews, all while looking deadly stunning in an asymmetric black gown.

The rest of the cast gets their fair share of love too - Murphy and Harper entertain everyone with an embarrassing story about Bellamy's _accident_ at a lake during filming. He's long given up on trying to stop them.

Clarke does all the dreaded mandatory solo poses, kisses her mother's cheek in passing, then gets roped into a photo with her and Marcus. She surprises herself by thinking that they look absolutely adorable, her mom radiating elegance in a dark green gown and Marcus ever her counterpart in a perfectly tailored suit.

Clarke can't wait to see her accept the well deserved award later in the evening. Luckily, her mascara is waterproof.

Her publicist steers her forward, and she soon finds herself joining Bellamy in front of a sea of hungry photographers. He smiles when he sees her and pulls her into his side, his hand a familiar weight on her waist.

At this point they have done this so many times that she moves on auto-pilot, allowing the photographers shots from different angles, and focuses on the man by her side. Her throat feels dry when she takes in all of him, from the suit and the freckles to the quiet confidence he exudes.

She can also sense his tension under the surface, and knows he's really nervous about his nomination. Which is just plain silly, because he's walking away with that award tonight, she can _feel_ it.

He turns his body slightly and his hand slips lower down her hip, right over one of the pockets of her dress. That's when he feels the bump, and lowers his head to whisper in her ear, ' _What the hell is that?_ '

' _Hershey kisses_ ,' she whispers back without hesitation. ' _It's a four-hour ceremony, Bellamy. And if my stylist allows me to wear a dress with pockets, you can bet I'm filling those with chocolate._ '  
  
The look he gives her is not easy to describe. A mix of amusement, fondness, and pride - she really hopes she's reading that correctly. In any case, it's a long way from the burning looks of contempt they used to exchange back in the day. Those were hot, too, but the way he's watching her now, like he's just solved the last remaining puzzle, fills her with so much hope and warms her from inside out.

He shakes his head slightly, smiling to himself. ' _Let's go inside before my sister runs away with the host or something._ '

Considering that Octavia has expressed multiple times how she wouldn't mind kidnapping the famous actor, Clarke figures it really is best not to leave anything to chance, and follows Bellamy inside. If her hand fits just right in his, and she bites her lip to hide her smile - well, no one has to know.

As the night progresses, golden statues come in a steady flow. Clarke swears she hears Anya laugh out loud at one point, even though Bellamy doesn't believe her. The word also got out that she has smuggled food inside, and the supplies are now running low as the whole table munches on Hershey kisses when the cameras are pointed elsewhere.

She's ready to abandon her actor life and fully embrace the persona of _Clarke Griffin, the chocolate dealer_.

As they come closer to the final categories of the night, Bellamy grows more and more agitated. Murphy doesn't help when he tells him that he has nothing to worry about because tripping over on stage has recently come back to style.

Sooner than any of them expected, the presenters for Best Actor are coming up on the stage. Bellamy reaches for Clarke's hand, his grip almost painful. She leans closer to him and whispers, ' _It'll be alright_.'

On his other side, Octavia stares at the stage with terrifying focus, like she's preparing to duel everyone if her brother doesn't get the award.

The presenters do the required introduction and the short montage reminds everyone of the nominees, but not a single word registers with Clarke, her whole world reduced to where her hand is intertwined with Bellamy's shaking one.

'And the Oscar goes to-' 

Clarke shuts her eyes, not daring to breathe.

'Bellamy Blake!'

Everything around her explodes. The whole table is on their feet and Clarke finds herself joining them, still in a trance-like state. Bellamy's hugs Octavia so hard that he lifts her off the ground, and then turns and pulls Clarke into him. She clings to his waist as he presses a kiss against her temple. ' _Thank you,_ ' he whispers, and then he's gone to accept his award.

Clarke sinks into her seat, her whole body shaking from the adrenaline, and squeezes Octavia's hand for before turning her focus to the stage.

The presenters hand Bellamy over the statue, and he takes one look at it in awe before settling in front of the microphone.

The applause dies down just as he runs a nervous hand through his hair, his slightly trembling voice filling up the theater.

'First of all, I want to thank my sister for telling me not to bother preparing a speech, because it's not like I'm going to win or anything.'

The crowd laughs and Clarke can't help but join in, eyes prickling from the incoming tears.

Bellamy chuckles to himself. 'But in all seriousness, O, you're my rock. Always will be.'

Next to Clarke, Octavia rolls her eyes at her brother's mushiness, but the effect is lessened when she ducks her head to wipe away a tear.

Bellamy continues, his voice full of emotion. 'To my friends, you're insane but I love you anyway, thanks for always being there for me. Marcus, I could never thank you enough for everything that you've done. And Clarke-'

Her heart on overdrive and her lungs not working, she meets his eyes over the crowd. Suddenly, there's no one else in the entire theater.

He smiles at her, his eyes twinkling, ' _You already know_.'

She blinks at the stage, his words taking time to sink in, while he's saying one final 'Thank you' and following the staff off the stage.

A murmur spreading through the crowd like wildfire, Clarke has trouble looking at any of her tablemates. She can only imagine the smugness on Octavia's face.

Instead, she repeats Bellamy's words in her mind, bites her lip and -

smiles.

-

Sometime in the middle of the after-party she finds herself wandering aimlessly alongside the balcony, when she comes across Marcus observing the crowd below with a thoughtful look. Interest piqued, she follows his gaze as she stops at his side, joining him in watching Octavia and Bellamy mingle their way through the crowd. Judging by everyone's enamored expressions, there's no shortage of charisma when it comes to the Blakes.

Clarke notices Marcus's concerned gaze following the siblings and has to press her lips together to hide her smile. 'I see you've adopted another mischievous child?'

'Someone needs to take care of them,' he says matter-of-factly.

'You do realize they are two grown adults, right? And that one's a movie star millionaire, while the other's a kick-ass attorney?'

Marcus chuckles, his gaze finally on her. 'Everybody needs someone to take care of them, Clarke.'

'They have _me_ ,' she insists, then realizing she's the one acting like a petulant child, sighs. 'Fine, I guess we can take care of them _together_.'

He ducks his head to hide his smile, then looks at her with hesitant hope in his eyes. 'Listen, Clarke, I know I've never been your favorite person-'

She stops him right there. 'You're alright.'

The way his face lights up when the gravity of the moment sinks in makes it hard for her to maintain her deceitfully casual expression.

She notices her mother and Bellamy watching this interaction with bright proud smiles from across the room, and she can't help but smile too.

She pats Marcus' shoulder and realizes she finally believes in what she's about to say.

'We'll all be alright.'

-

With the first rays of early morning sun they stumble into his house, laughing. They are finally alone, after hours upon hours of internationally broadcast ceremony, constant public scrutiny and a parade of well-wishers that was still going strong well into the after-after-party.

Clarke would have been in bed already, if it weren't for Octavia and her insistance on one epic night out before she's locked away preparing for her finals.

Bellamy's seventy-year-old-man lifestyle suddenly makes perfect sense - apparently his sister parties hard enough for both of them.

Even when Clarke and Bellamy waved the flag in defeat, Octavia was hopping on the back of Lincoln's motorcycle and outvoicing Bellamy's grumbling by shouting at them not to wait up.

Bellamy throws his suit jacket in the general direction of the sofa and heads towards the kitchen as Clarke toes off her shoes, leaves them on the living room floor and heads upstairs, yelling, 'I'm gonna raid your closet real quick!'

She can hear his muffled laughter even as she enters his bedroom, not wanting to spend another minute in that huge gown. 

When she returns downstairs she's clad in his sweatpants, legs rolled up, and a soft T-shirt. Her make-up is all smudged after a long night out, her hair on its way to the usual frizzy hell. She's a mess, she knows that.

But then she finds herself pausing at the kitchen entrance, trying to calm the butterflies in her stomach when he looks at her like he's seeing her for the first time.

He finally breaks out of it and lifts a jar that was in his hand the whole time. 'Peanut butter or Nutella?'

Any trace of her insecurities is gone, just like that. She steps into the kitchen and smirks. 'Both.'

They bicker and laugh their way through an impromptu breakfast, fatigue moving aside and making way to a low undercurrent of anticipation. The kitchen is soaked in soft morning light, air full of possibilities and growing expectation. 

She grabs a spoonful of peanut butter and licks the spoon clean, reveling in the way his gaze keeps slipping to her mouth.

This feels dangerously new and achingly familiar at the same time. 

Their knees bump under the counter. He licks his lips and she watches the movement of his tongue, transfixed.

When they finish eating, he starts loading the dishwasher and she puts away the food, never stopping sneaking glances at each other as they work in silence.

When she's done, she leans against the cupboard and watches him put in the last remaining plate.

His tone is casual. 'So, you think ordering two giant Oscars for the front yard would seem presumptuous?'

She shakes her head in mock-disapproval, failing to hide a grin. 'Honestly, I can't stand you.'

A heartbeat of silence and then -

'So shut me up already.'

His voice resonates around the kitchen, and for a split-second she's sure she's heard him wrong. But then she catches his gaze and he's not backing down, not taking it back, his eyes are set on her in a challenge.

She crosses the distance between them in two long strides, grabs his shirt, and -

kisses him like it's the last damn thing she'll ever do.

Her body is pressed into his, fitting like pieces of a puzzle she solved what feels like a lifetime ago. And now she finally gets to put the pieces together.

His hands come up to her jaw, fingers tangling into her hair as he deepens their kiss. She's dizzy with happiness and so much _relief_ that this is finally happening, which makes her smile against his lips.

He grins too, kisses the tip of her nose before leaning his forehead against hers as they struggle to catch their breaths. Clarke clings to his shirt, one hand roaming lazily over his firm chest. 'You know we could have been doing this for months now if you weren't so slow to catch on.'

His lips are so close to her ear that she feels his warm breath, his hands sparking a wildfire on her bare waist. He whispers, 'We could have been doing this since the day we met if you weren't such a dick.'

His words break her out of her Bellamy-induced haze and she hits his chest, offended. ' _Hey!_ '

He silences her protest with a kiss she feels down to her toes. 'No more talking, Clarke.' Another kiss. 'Sorry, I don't make the rules.'

Her chuckles quickly turn into soft gasps as his lips press against her neck. She sneaks her hands into his soft curls, her back arching when his teeth graze against her earlobe.

Her mouth now effectively shut, she can't bring herself to care. Let him think he won.

She has a lifetime to prove him wrong. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally all is well with the world :)
> 
> As you can tell, I'm a sucker for Blake/Kane family dynamic. I hope there aren't too many mistakes left, I was eager to get this 6k monster out for you guys, so proofreading wasn't up to the usual standard.
> 
> Come find me on my new tumblr under the same name (planarities)! There's a tag specifically for this fic, with content like social media edits and movie posters that a lovely reader made for me. If by any chance anyone else creates something, I'd be honored to feature it there. Also, I'm looking for people to follow so don't be strangers. 
> 
> Next chapter is final and I envision it as a day-in-the-life epilogue sort of thing. Tell me who/what you'd like to see. I'll try my best to have it ready as soon as I can!
> 
> Last thing - you've spoiled me with your attention and now I'm addicted to hearing your thoughts. Tell me everything.
> 
>  
> 
> (17/02/2018)
> 
> Just a short message for everyone who might be (re)reading this fic from now on:
> 
> I've originally planned to write one more chapter, an epilogue of sorts, in which some time down the line Clarke's a successful director of female superhero movies and Bellamy's adding more Oscars to his growing collection of prizes, and possibly there's a kid involved. But, unfortunately, life got in the way and I never got around to it. I'm not saying it will never happen, there's always a chance that inspiration will strike, but for now I'm happy with leaving this as it is. 
> 
> I can't even begin to describe how much I appreciate all the support I've gotten over the years - you guys pushed me to develop as a writer and, even more importantly, made me less afraid of putting my work out there in the world. I can never thank you enough.


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